The Claimant, on her solicitor’s advice, covertly recorded her testing by the Defendant’s neuropsychological expert. Weighing up the factors in favour of admitting the evidence and against admitting it, the judge considered that they were very finely balanced and quite difficult and that he may well have ruled that the evidence could not be relied on, if the Defendant’s expert had not himself inadvertently recorded the testing.

The task for the expert in this case was enormous. Capacity is issue specific. This means that if the issue is someone’s capacity to conduct legal proceedings, in this case sixteen sets of proceedings, the expert has to consider each set of proceedings. The person may have the capacity to conduct some and not others.

Johnston v Financial Ombudsman Service [2025] EWCA Civ 551

In this article, Dr Kay Linnell OBE talks about the role of the expert witness, and the problems that can be encountered when Instructing Parties go too far to prevent any accusation of bias or undue influence on appointed party’s expert, risking the expert’s ability to fully assist the Tribunal. Dr Linnell's article was originally published in the autumn edition of Expert Matters, EWI's membership magazine.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal has published a Practice Direction on expert evidence. The Practice Direction sets out the principles applicable to expert evidence in the Tribunal, including general principles applicable to the evidence of any expert, as well as certain specific principles applicable to economic evidence. 

The Claimant defaulted on a loan secured by a mortgage on a warehouse building. It disagreed with the Receiver's approach to marketing the building and applied unsuccessfully to the Court for an order giving it conduct of the mortgagee sale. It's subsequent appeal to the Court of Appeal included appealing the Judge’s refusal of expert evidence. The Court of Appeal upheld the Judge’s decision as it was not clear how the report would provide any real assistance with resolving the question before the Judge of whether the conduct of the sale should be taken away from the Receivers.

Retiring from your role as an expert witness is a significant decision that requires careful consideration and planning. The EWI has published new Guidance setting out the important steps and factors to consider as you prepare for retirement.

The Civil Procedure Rule Committee's Access to Public Domain Documents Pilot will run from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2027. You can familiarise yourself with the Pilot by reading our Guidance and watching our Webinar (free to EWI Members, otherwise available on the Webshop).

Join us for the last podcast of 2025! With some festive cheer, we review 2025, with the ten key issues for expert witnesses that we've seen over the course of the year. We also check out how our predictions for 2025 turned out, before having another go for 2026 and hearing the 2025 highlights from some of the members of our Editorial Committee. 

The Claimants brought an action against the Defendant, the Secretary of State for Education, for negligence and misfeasance in public office, relating to the actions of the Skills Funding Agency (‘SFA’), for which the Defendant is responsible. The Claimants alleged that the acts of SFA prevented them from selling their business for around £27 million, plus a lost chance of converting around £10 million in rollover loan notes.

The Defendant issued an application to revoke the Claimants’ permission to rely upon their forensic accounting expert evidence, because it had become clear that one of the Claimants, who was a trained accountant, had had significant secret involvement in the preparation of the expert’s report and the Joint Statement.

Mr Niall Craig is a Consultant Orthopaedic Spinal Surgeon and Expert Witness specialising in complex spinal cases. He tells us about his professional journey and shares his advice for being cross examined, writing Reports, and getting referrals.