Maggie did well to post that. What an experience!
Obviously one lesson to be learnt is that the impression one might get of a pilot's experience (from conversation) might be bull!!!!!, and in this GA business which is full of Walter Mitty characters, a lot of what one hears is indeed just that. Quite a bit of it not a million miles away from these forums, either. I used to rent out my TB20 and was astonished at some of the types I came across then, and more since, and oddly enough the worst happened to be certain instructors.
The other lesson is that one has to avoid the "experienced pilot" syndrome. In GA, single pilot, there will always be some ambiguity as regards who is really PIC - even if legally the situation may be clear. I've got vastly more touring experience that almost any PPL instructor I have ever met and I am sure I could go up for some check or renewal flight with any local instructor and sail straight into CAS while the instructor would be pretty relaxed, and if this was in a G-reg then he would be PIC by default and would get busted for it.
I am N-reg and under FAA rules the "student" is PIC (in US airspace on the privileges of the FAA Student Pilot Certificate) and in general terms this remains the case in UK airspace too, so the scenario is more ambiguous there because in most N-reg flying instruction done outside the USA the "student" is actually legally capable of being PIC.
Reading many accident reports, sometimes between the lines (the AAIB has to be careful what they write) it is obvious that a lot of bad decisions are made in this way. I have never had a scary flight myself but my only spectacularly bad weather decision to date (which resulted in having to fly an ILS into Biggin through the bottom part of a very dark CB) was made when I was flying as a PU/T with a supposedly highly experienced instructor. One well publicised recent 2x fatal in the USA had both pilots with tens of thousands of hours between them and they still did a CFIT - equipment failure excepted, it is likely that each assumed the other knew what they were doing.
Finally, I am suprised the CAA prosecuted in this case. Maybe they wanted to make an example of it? Who knows. They are a bunch of ex policemen and thus sometimes work in mysterious ways. Normally, if you have the "correct attitude" (grovel like hell at the interview) you get away with a CAS bust. They tend to prosecute high-media-profile TRA busts, and most of all they love prosecuting alleged illegal public transport (usually reported to them by a nearby AOC holder
).
Next time, fly with a GPS
The student doesn't need to see it, of course. I would never fly anywhere without a GPS - I prefer to sleep at night and life is too short.