Bose
I was of course very careful to point out that I was not making a judgement into which camp this gentleman fell. On the basis of your assessment then clearly his preparation as commander fell well short of the mark. Given the various views expressed on this thread it is a matter for the poster to reflect on the cause of the infrigement, whether the punishment was just and whether any action might have been taken against the PPL.
Examples such as this illustrate some of the potential pitfalls I pointed out of mentoring. One can easily imagine a very similiar situation where an apparently experienced PPL asks his mentor to accompany him to a field in an ATZ with which he is not familiar. Under the mentoring scheme the PPL is Commander but, and this is the rub, legally or otherwise the probability is the PPL will derogate to the experienced mentor because in his mind that is why the mentor is in the right seat. Indeed the mentor may well have said - worry not, I am pretty familiar with that area leave the navigation to me!
Of course the CAA will prosecute the PPL in the left seat and the mentor will shrug his shoulders, but who is at fault?