Expert Witness Journal Dec 24 - Journal - Page 75
understanding the corrosive impact of coercive and
controlling behaviour, and very many other mechanisms by which harm may be inflicted upon a child.
still is, by Mr Justice David Williams, to look at all matters concerning experts in the Family Court. The Expert’s Group has done much to engage with medical
specialists and to understand the range of issues that
might make acting as an expert in proceedings less
than attractive. Four principal areas of concern were
identified:
The degree to which professional knowledge has developed, and continues to develop, is physically
demonstrated by the size of the book published by the
Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health on the
‘Physical Signs of Child Sexual Abuse’. The second
edition, current at the time of the Cleveland inquiry,
was in A5 format and ran to 97 pages. The current
edition is A4 and, at 278 pages is the size of a telephone book – if you can remember what one of those
was.
l Poor remuneration;
l Negative experience of court processes;
l Lack of training and support in the role of being an
expert; and
l The potential for adverse criticism in the court’s
judgment.
You may, with some justification, think that I have
travelled a good way from paediatric radiology, but I
have done so to demonstrate just how crucial it is that
our, that is to say society’s, understanding of abuse in
all its forms continues to develop and how crucial expert opinion, from whatever relevant specialty, is to
that continuing development.
In the past five years much has been done to try to
meet each of these concerns and to render appearing
as an expert in the Family Court a more attractive
prospect. Every single Family judge has received training on how to treat an expert appropriately and fairly
and, in particular, the difference between disagreement with a conclusion and ad hominem criticism of
the one who gives that opinion.
In each of these broad categories of abuse, at each turn
in the development of greater understanding, and in
each case before the courts, we in the judiciary have
relied upon expert opinion to interpret, often in
minute detail, the presenting signs and symptoms
that have led a child to become the subject of care
proceedings.
One beneficial consequence of Covid, and the court’s
move, overnight, to entirely remote court hearings, is
that, although the hearing itself will normally involve
the key protagonists attending court, it is now vanishingly rare for the expert to do so. The expert will normally give evidence online, thereby reducing very
considerably the time and hassle that the process may
involve and, if anything, enhancing the clarity of the
evidence with, for example, a paediatric radiologist
simply being able to ‘share their screen’ in order to
demonstrate some facet or other of a key image.
Lawyers are no more than lay people who have an
expert understanding of the law and, no doubt, its
practice in one or other of a range of specialist fields.
Judges are no more than lawyers who have decided to
rise above the fray to the altogether calmer atmosphere that surrounds the judgement seat. Lawyers,
judges, and social workers, have no ability to diagnose
or interpret matters of medical science, we must rely
upon medical experts to do so. Even if after decades
of practice in the family court, a judge or lawyer has
developed a good understanding of a discrete area,
for example head injury, that can never obviate the
need for the court to be able to turn to relevant expert medical opinion in every single case where the
need arises. That that is so, even if it is the fifth such
case of that type the judge has heard in recent times,
is because it will be the first and only such case affecting the particular family who are before the court on
that day. The stakes are often very high in these cases,
with the child going home if abuse is not proved, or
moving on to adoption by strangers if it is. As a matter of basic justice, but also, even more importantly, as
a matter of simply getting to the right answer for the
sake of the child and his or her future, it is essential
that the court can turn to respected and authoritative
expert opinion where that is needed.
Now is not the place to make a ‘hard sell’ for each of
you to accept instruction as an expert in Family proceedings, but you may rest assured that we are continuing to do what we can to make the court process
and the environment around it much more welcoming than has hitherto been the case.
Under the Act of Parliament and the court rules, the
court may only permit the instruction of an expert in
the Family Court where to do so is ‘necessary’ for the
just determination of the case. Where it is necessary it
is indeed necessary, not just for the court’s benefit but
for the benefit of the individual child, so that an accurate and clear conclusion may be reached where there
is ambiguity over any potential significant harm and its
cause. In short, when we say we need you, we really do
need your expert opinion for the sake of the children
who are brought before the court.
One recent, and potentially far reaching initiative that
has come from the Expert’s Group, is the SIHIS pilot.
SIHIS stands for Suspected Inflicted Head Injury Service. It is a concept, if it takes off, that may well affect
each of you in your work as paediatric radiologists.
The scheme is being piloted in the regions served by
Manchester University Hospitals, Sheffield Children’s
Hospital and Birmingham Children’s Hospital. In a
When I became President of the Family Division over
six years ago there was concern over the difficulty in
finding medical specialists in particular fields who
were prepared to act as experts in family court proceedings. I established a group, under the general
umbrella of the Family Justice Council, chaired, as it
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
73
DECEMBER 2024
