Professionals Against Child Abuse

Bearing Good Witness: The Reluctant Experts, by Catherine Williams, Reader in Law, Sheffield University
[Republished with publisher’s permission]

“In October 2006 the government launched a consultation document, Bearing Good Witness: Proposals for reforming the delivery of medical expert evidence in family law cases. The consultation closed in February 2007 and a summary of responses was published in July 2007. Prior to that, in a parliamentary statement on 17 June 2004, the Minister for Children, Young People and Families indicated that she had arranged for the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) to carry out an inquiry into how best to ensure the availability and quality of medical expert resources in court proceedings because there was an ‘acute problem … in finding experts of high standing to give medical evidence in proceedings’. She did not explain why this situation had arisen nor did she address the more acute problem. The unavailability of expert witnesses in proceedings is a symptom of the widespread reluctance of paediatricians, in particular, but also other professional staff, to be involved in child protection work in any respect. That reluctance was and is having a serious detrimental effect on the current arrangements for the protection of vulnerable children generally and will ensure that the narrower area of interest, that of experts being appointed for a specific purpose, will become even more difficult for want of the availability of sufficiently experienced professionals. The executive summary of Bearing Good Witness sets out the factors that, in the opinion of the CMO, deter doctors from being expert witnesses:

• few training programmes;

• court processes intimidating and stressful;

• court processes slow, bureaucratic and time consuming; and

• fear of referral to the General Medical Council (GMC) by vexatious parties.”[…]

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