A Day in the Life of a Threat, Risk and Harm Consultant, Expert Evidence Trainer, and Expert Witness

EWI Honorary Fellow Tony Saggers has been a drug trafficking Expert Witness since 1995, alongside a career in law enforcement that spanned 30 years. Formerly the National Crime Agency’s Head of Drugs Threat and Intelligence, he now runs a consultancy providing anti-organised crime strategy solutions, child safeguarding from criminal exploitation advice, and Expert Witness training. Here, he provides a glimpse into his long and varied career and explains the importance of impartiality, communication, and evolution in the Expert Witness field.

I joined the police in 1987.

I became a detective quite quickly within Suffolk Constabulary and went on to join the drug squad in 1995. That year, I wrote my first basic drug-related expert report. Over the following five years, I ended up doing hundreds of those reports — it became a passion.

When I joined the National Crime Squad in 2000, I was confident that I was providing quality expert reports, but I had no idea if my colleagues were operating within consistent standards or representing corporate knowledge. The danger of us contradicting each other at court became apparent.

So, in 2004 I established a centralised approach, designing and implementing the first coordinated capability for expert evidence for drug trafficking (at an organised crime level) within the National Crime Squad. I also created policy, training courses, peer review methods, CPD structures and an Expert Witness management platform.

Over the next few years, we developed an exciting, globally respected capability.

In 2006, I became the Head of Expert Evidence for Organised Crime at the newly founded Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA, which later became the National Crime Agency). During my 7 years in the role, I managed Expert Witness responses to over 1,000 investigations and trained practitioners across the UK and internationally.

One of my most memorable cases was my final allocation within SOCA.

I was the Expert Witness in the case against Curtis Warren, a notorious drug trafficker. The judge ordered him to pay £198 million (from proceeds of crime) following his trial and conviction.

Having provided expert evidence at the Jersey based trial, I later received approximately 2000 pages of evidence, collated by the prosecutor, for the proceeds hearing. My task was to interpret and describe key aspects of this evidence to assist the court in determining the scale of decades of alleged trafficking.   

When your name is associated with a £198 million ruling, that’s significant! But what makes that case even more memorable is that I actually reduced some of the liability by reinterpreting aspects of his code to be about transport types, not consignment volume. It’s crucial to maintain integrity — that’s more important than getting carried away with the high profile of the task.

After I retired from the NCA, I established new opportunities as an independent.

I set up my company to provide consultancy and training across the UK and overseas in fields that I knew I could support and develop. My police contacts approached me quite early and asked me to design and deliver expert evidence courses that did not exist then, but for which there was recognised demand and benefits.

The courses became well-established and now we design and deliver training courses to officers in drug trafficking and organised crime, county lines, and firearms, as well as more generic practice and CPD events.

I didn’t intend to continue being an Expert Witness.  

But I’m a big believer that if you’re training it, you should be doing it – particularly if you are addressing specific fields. It’s a self-fulfilling scenario – I keep informed by practising as an Expert Witness, and I deliver Expert Witness training because I am one. It’s incredibly important for me to be up to date with the rules, legislation and topic knowledge.

As an Expert Witness, I’m involved in all kinds of drugs cases.

I provide reports and court evidence on drug supply, trafficking and production, organised crime, county lines, and criminal exploitation. Drug cases range from retail level local drugs supply to wholesale importation. Regardless of the scale, each scenario can be quite complex. I examine how criminal networks operate, how they talk to each other, make notes reflecting activity and decode communications.

Time pressures to meet deadlines can be challenging.

Figuring out how to analyse the evidence and piece it back together to relay to court is one of the most challenging parts of being an Expert in this field. A recent wholesale case involved two weeks of reading and evaluating on my part, with a further five days to write my reports. Three weeks to work through a huge amount of material is quite a task, not least when you know other parties are working to tight evidence service deadlines.

Impartiality is crucial.

It’s at the roots of success to being a good Expert Witness. People might expect someone from my policing background to be biased and want to boost the prosecution case. Of course, the prosecution wouldn’t use someone like me if there wasn’t a benefit. But my approach cannot be motivated to achieve a ‘benefit’: my evidence must be impartially constructed and presented. It’s my responsibility to demonstrate that. I’m not interested in who the accused are, I’m always focused on the evidence that has been collected.

It can be challenging for police officers when they start their Expert Witness training. The complexity and rules of the role means they are commonly wearing two hats when it comes to their core and Expert Witness responsibilities. I park my reputation within impartiality and teach the importance of that, over any other motivations or influences.

The cases I’m involved in and teach, take impartiality to the next level.

County Lines is a classic example of this, because the criminal business model that supplies crack and heroin on a massive scale, every day, entails a complex mix of criminality, exploitation, reward and consequences. It is absolutely not for me to determine who is a victim, perpetrator or both – but my interpretations have the potential to be influential in assisting others to decide this.

There’s a definite transition from being an expert to being an Expert Witness.

Being an Expert Witness is an absolute skill — and it’s not for everyone. I’ve delivered training to experts who then decide they don’t want to be Expert Witnesses, or aren’t suited to it. It’s important to understand the difference between having knowledge and expertise and then knowing how to use it in an evidential capacity.

One important attribute is effective communication.

To be an expert doesn’t necessarily require communication skills. To be an Expert Witness does. I emphasise to new Expert Witnesses that their reports must simplify complexity and be easy to understand. It can’t be written in a language for your industry. The skill in compiling the expert report is to make content consumable to other parties and the jury, who may have limited knowledge of your area of expertise.

You need to be strong enough to own your Expert Witness status.

There are numerous examples of the Expert Witness becoming the focus of controversy – despite all other parties in the court room having either invited the evidence, or allowed it to be delivered to a jury.

Make sure you don’t capitulate to doing something just because you’ve been asked to by someone involved in the case. Without being obstructive, don’t be afraid to push back and say when you think you’ll be in breach of duty.

I’ve been asked to perform tasks that I’ve declined, and have received questions from both prosecution and defence counsel during live trials) that I’ve assessed may create a breach if I answered directly.

Accept that you are constantly learning and evolving.

Make sure your evidence reflects that and keep content timely and up to date. During reviews of peer reports, I’ve seen examples of Experts contradicting themselves in their own reports, usually having not properly cross-checked what they have pasted from previous overviews, against their case specific findings. Copy and paste can be our enemy in terms of reputation, if we are not thorough.

Select your expert evidence training wisely.

If you’re committed to getting this right for you or your staff, you want people to deliver your training who are consistently invested in doing it right themselves. I think it’s important to be diligent when prioritising what type of training you need and to what extent suppliers will achieve that for you. Assess options and scrutinise those offering training to ensure they’ll meet expectations. Examine the objectives they set for feedback and don’t be afraid to probe that.

As this field evolves, I’m able to evolve with it.

I was incredibly appreciative of being made an Honorary Fellow of the EWI in 2023. I’m proud to have made meaningful, constructive contributions to the Expert Witness field. I was a member of the CPS review, which led to the publication of national guidance concerning expert evidence disclosure and I co-wrote the accompanying definition of an Expert Witness.

Day to day, I’m enabling police officers to become or develop as Expert Witnesses across a range of fields, while breaking new ground. I love being part of the evolution of expert evidence and have been rewarded by managing fantastic teams of Experts, being part of an outstanding peer group, and teaching highly motivated practitioners.