Silvaire1, within the bounds of what has been alleged in the Original Post, the CAA have done nothing wrong.
The CAA issued the examiner with a rating and it has an expiry date, clearly written on it. He is alleged to have continued operating after the expiry of this.
There is another possibility here. If the examiner has had his rating renewed by another examiner, who has in turn, failed to deliver the paperwork to Gatwick, that would explain the CAA thinking the OP's examiner was not (and indeed would not be) legal.
There may be no malpractice in any of this, but nevertheless, the OP's skills test pass is not valid. This is why the CAA state that you must not fly as PIC until you have the signed your licence.
I'm not sure where that stands for ratings. Acting in good faith, I have flown after an examiner signed my ratings page. I am not aware of any means of me checking his lawful ability to do so.
However, when I passed my skills test, I took (by road) all my document to Turweston, where a very nice lady checked them over for me prior to sending them to Gatwick. The first step in her checking process was to type in the registered number of the examiner to check he was authorised and current for signing the forms. The staff at Turweston have/had an online system allowing them to verify the CAA status of any examiner that they need to check up on. Perhaps we all need access to that, in some form.
If the situation is as has been suggested in the OP, then some blame may be attached to slack admin by the FTO as they ought to be on top of this stuff as well as the individual examiners and instructors should be.
I'd expect a trawl by all FTOs early next week, wanting to see the documents for all licensed staff.
Last edited by airpolice; 8th October 2011 at 00:37.