David John Kevin Pritchard used to work as a nurse at the Goulburn Base Hospital. Photo: NSW Health.
A nurse who used to work at Goulburn’s hospital has been banned from practising for at least a year after he served a jail sentence for firing a gun at a house.
On Wednesday (28 January), the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal cancelled David John Kevin Pritchard’s health practitioner registration and said he couldn’t ask for a review of the decision for one year.
The four-member tribunal, in a published decision, said he completed a Bachelor of Nursing in 2013 and became mental health nurse at Shellharbour Hospital before he was suspended over an incident with a patient in June 2017.
He went on to spend about three years working as a nurse at Goulburn Base Hospital in the early 2020s before an incident in April 2023 when he fired a rifle at a house while someone was still inside.
He was suspended from practising and resigned from his job at Goulburn later that year.
Pritchard, a father-of-two who is in his mid-50s, pleaded guilty and was convicted over firing the gun in June 2024. He was handed a three-year sentence and spent 18 months in prison before he was granted parole in early 2025.
The tribunal said he did have a firearm licence and appeared to keep three guns for hunting and stock or pest control before his licence was revoked and his guns were seized after his arrest.
Meanwhile, the Health Care Complaints Commission took him to the tribunal in an attempt to cancel his registration due to his conviction.
Last year, he told the tribunal he was “living week to week” either as a casual labourer with uncertain hours or on Jobseeker payments.
“I feel that I was justly convicted and sentenced for the crime I committed,” he said.
“I understand that I have brought the nursing profession into disrepute by my offending, but honestly feel that my offending had nothing to do with or effected my nursing practice [sic].
“I would like to state that for all of the problems in my personal life, my nursing practice since beginning to work on the rehabilitation ward at Goulburn Base Hospital had not been adversely impacted but only improved.”
But the tribunal said Pritchard’s criminal conduct was “grave and violent”.
“It occurred while he was heavily intoxicated, and in the context of his long history of anger management issues for which he had received counselling,” they said.
“He has failed to control angry impulses throughout his life, and … this panel has difficulty accepting that he could qualify for a firearms permit.
“We acknowledge that Pritchard entered an early guilty plea, and expressed early remorse for his actions, but he had had anger management problems in the nursing workplace on at least 22 June 2017, placing patient safety at risk.”
The tribunal found the complaint proved and ordered Pritchard to pay 80 per cent of the commission’s legal costs.
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