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Case updates

Case Updates

These case updates are provided by Professor Keith J.B. Rix, BMedBiol (Hons), MPhil, LLM, MD, FRCPsych, Hon FFFLM

Professor Keith Rix is a founding member of the Expert Witness Institute and became a Fellow in 2002. He is a member of the EWI’s Membership Committee. He is Visiting Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, School of Medicine, University of Chester, Honorary Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and Mental Health and Intellectual Disability Lead, Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians.  He has provided expert evidence for over 35 years, including on a pro bono basis in capital cases in the Caribbean and Africa. He is the author of Expert Psychiatric Evidence and a co-editor, with Laurence Mynors-Wallis and Ciaran Craven SC, of the second edition, Rix’s Expert Psychiatric Evidence, which is being published by Cambridge University Press in September 2020. He is also the lead author of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Report CR193 Responsibilities of psychiatrist who provide expert opinion to courts and tribunals.   

Case Updates

Expert evidence a matter for Trial judge: Application to exclude it at pre-trial stage refused as misconceived

Expert evidence a matter for Trial judge: Application to exclude it at pre-trial stage refused as misconceived

In a fatal accident and personal injury damages claim the claimant made a number of criticisms of the Defendant’s expert’s report and applied to exclude it on several grounds:
 

  • lack of expertise
  • expressing opinions outside areas of expertise
  • failure to maintain impartiality

 

Mr Dexter Dias KC (sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court) found the application to be fundamentally misconceived and dismissed it.

 

He gave each ground in-depth consideration and found that it was a matter for the trial judge to determine – not at pre-trial.

 

The judgement (link below) is worth reading. For example, regarding the allegation of ‘expressing opinions outside their expertise’, the judge states:

 

I find that this particular objection is classically a matter for the trial judge's judgment and discretion. I conclude, first, that it is not a basis for the exclusion of Mr X's evidence; second, it is not appropriate at this point, as Mr Y submits as his subsidiary position, to excise or to remove a particular passage or passages. That is a matter for the trial judge to assess once the evidence is before her or him.”

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