Former chair of RPS disciplinary committee with a second-to-none intellect

I was saddened to hear that Sir Mota Singh QC, Crown Court judge and former chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) Disciplinary Committee, died on 13 November 2016, aged 86 years.

I first met Singh in 2007 when I was appointed to the RPSGB Disciplinary Committee, of which he was the chair. For the next few years I had the privilege to sit with him on many occasions. His preparation for cases was meticulous and, before every hearing at which we sat together, my first task was to tutor him in the pronunciation of the drug names with which he was unfamiliar, such was his attention to detail.

I recall marvelling at his delivery of the final determination: on one such occasion the fire alarm was tested while he was in full flow, he paused and, when the bell stopped ringing, continued without repetition as if nothing had happened. Equally remarkable was that he was using only brief notes and a list of page numbers from the relevant “bundles” to which he referred from time to time.

Singh was small in stature, modest, kind and compassionate with a very dry “British” sense of humour. He would arrive at 1 Lambeth High Street (the old headquarters of the RPSGB) immaculately dressed in a three piece suit and starched white turban carrying his papers in a hessian shopping bag, having driven to work early enough to avoid the newly introduced congestion charge. The car was parked several streets away from the Society and he walked the rest of the way. Anyone passing him in the street would never have guessed he was a retired Crown Court Judge, with an intellect second to none (and also the opening batsman for the Kenyan cricket team in his younger days).

My thoughts and sympathy go to his family, he will be sorely missed.

E J H Mallinson

Glasgow