This week changes to the wording of the declaration in an expert’s report came into force. This change affects expert witnesses who act in criminal cases with immediate effect. The amendment is at Criminal Practice Direction Part V: Evidence 19B: Statements of Understanding and Declarations of Truth in Expert Reports. The previous version of paragraph 13...

Hundreds of commercial airline pilots currently flying may be clinically depressed, a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has found. The new findings, published a year and a half after the tragic Germanwings crash, signal the need to tackle stigma and better support pilots dealing with mental health issues. The study is the...

The Law Commission has today published proposals to update the current test of a defendant's fitness to plead, by broadening the range of tests that can be used and including opinion from Expert Psychologists.

The current test of Fitness to Plead assessment is generally conducted by Expert Witness Psychiatrists and includes elements...

What is Capacity? According to the Mental Capacity Act, a person is considered to lack capacity if they are unable to make or communicate a decision that needs to be made at the time it needs to be made ‘because of an impairment of, or a disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain’.  The...

Over 250,000 new cases are brought to the Family Courts each year, according to statistics published on the Ministry of Justice website.  Almost half of these are divorce proceedings, but over 10% relate to Public Law Family cases.  Public Family Law proceedings are notoriously complicated and difficult cases to manage and can...

Mental Health is a major issue in offending behaviour, in fact the Prison Reform Trust state that 72% of male and 70% of female sentenced prisoners suffer from two or more mental health disorders.  An Expert Psychiatric report on Disposal and Pre-Sentencing options can be a vital document in assisting the judge to determine...

Fitness to Plead in the Crown Court (Archbold 4-166a to 4-185) The purpose of this procedure is to strike a fair balance between the need to protect a defendant, who has, in fact, done nothing wrong but is unfit to plead at his trial, and the need to protect the public from a defendant who has...