David John Kevin Pritchard

Introduction

David John Kevin Pritchard is a registered nurse whose nursing registration was cancelled after the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that in 2024 he was convicted of the offence of firing a firearm at a dwelling-house with reckless disregard for the safety of any person — an offence relating to an incident in April 2023 in which he fired a rifle at a house while a person was inside. The Health Care Complaints Commission prosecuted the complaint. In its decision of 28 January 2026 the Tribunal found the complaint proven, found that Pritchard had been convicted of a criminal offence in NSW, and cancelled his registration for twelve months.

Background Information

Pritchard worked as a registered nurse in New South Wales. Nursing registration sits on top of a criminal-history monitoring regime: practitioners must notify the national board of criminal charges and convictions within days, and the Health Care Complaints Commission can separately prosecute a complaint that a practitioner has been convicted of an offence, with the Tribunal then deciding what that conviction means for registration. The offence in this case — firing at a dwelling-house with reckless disregard for the safety of any person — is a firearms offence that does not require anyone to have been injured, only that a rifle was directed at an occupied home. The complaint was prosecuted before the Tribunal, NSW’s senior disciplinary forum for registered health practitioners.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Tribunal findings. The findings below are the formal adjudications of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal in a case prosecuted by the Health Care Complaints Commission. The conviction was found proven in the Tribunal’s decision of 28 January 2026. The sources do not report the sentence imposed in the criminal proceeding.

It was alleged that in 2024 Mr Pritchard was convicted of the offence of firing a firearm at a dwelling-house with reckless disregard for the safety of any person. The offence related to an incident in April 2023, when he fired a rifle at a house while a person was inside. In its decision of 28 January 2026 the Tribunal found the complaint proven, found that David Pritchard had been convicted of a criminal offence in NSW, and cancelled his registration for twelve months. The Tribunal’s published account is deliberately narrow — it adjudicates the fact of the conviction and its consequences for the register, not the circumstances of the April 2023 shooting beyond what the conviction itself establishes: a rifle, an occupied house, and recklessness toward whoever was inside.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The Health Care Complaints Commission published its media release announcing the cancellation on 13 February 2026, a fortnight after the decision. The release is one of the Commission’s shorter notifications — a conviction, a finding, a twelve-month cancellation — consistent with its practice for criminal-conviction complaints where the criminal courts have already done the fact-finding and the Tribunal’s task is protective only. For a nurse, a firearms conviction against an occupied dwelling sits in the category of criminality that boards treat as incompatible with registration regardless of its connection to clinical practice, because the register vouches for the practitioner’s character and reliability rather than only their clinical skill. The release names no appeal and no public statement from Pritchard.

Current Status

Pritchard’s nursing registration is cancelled for twelve months from the 28 January 2026 decision. He cannot practise as a registered nurse in Australia while unregistered. The Tribunal’s decision is published through NSW Caselaw, and the criminal proceeding’s own outcome — sentence, any appeal — is recorded in the courts, not in the Commission’s release. The sources report no public statement from Pritchard and no appeal against the Tribunal’s decision. No person inside the house was reported injured in the material the Commission published.

Impact on Their Career/Life

A nursing registration ended not over clinical care but over a rifle fired at an occupied house — conduct with no connection to any hospital ward — and that distance is the point the Tribunal’s structure encodes: the register is a character warranty to every patient who lets a nurse into their care, and a reckless-endangerment conviction voids it for the twelve months of the cancellation regardless of what happens in the criminal courts afterwards. A nurse returning after this cancellation would do so against a criminal record that remains disclosable to the national board for the rest of his working life. His case joins the Commission’s February 2026 run of published NSW cancellations for criminal convictions.

Sources

• NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, “Mr David John Kevin Pritchard – Registered nurse – Cancellation for criminal conviction,” 13 February 2026 — source