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`Good Practice' for Expert Witnesses

The aim of this article is to look at good practice in expert-witness court reports in Children Act cases. Reports written by child psychiatrist experts differ enormously in the information they contain, the way in which the report is structured and in style of presentation. There may be a number of reasons for this. Child psychiatrists who work as experts receive little or no formal training for this area of their work. There is no official guidance from the courts about how reports should be presented. Guidance to experts by instructing solicitors is often limited. Feedback to experts by `user' groups, such as judges, is often lacking. There are no studies which have sought the views of users as to what they see as the desirable attributes of a report. This questionnaire study was carried out with the support of the Lord Chancellor's Department, the Official Solicitor's Office, the National Association of Guardians ad litem, and the Law Society. It looks at what the users want and what the experts think, and explores the degree to which it is possible for a consensus to be reached by the interested parties. The results of the questionnaire are combined with recent guidance to produce a model format suitable for use in Children Act cases.