FIRSTLY, when dealing with claimants, the appointment-making process should be clear and unambiguous, as should contact details for the expert or their office.
Clients often benefit from a brief explanation of the process at the beginning of the appointment. They may perceive that they have been swamped by paperwork, and may well feel confused about the process.
THE PURPOSE of this article is to inform lawyers that if their clients have taken either prescription medicines or illegal substances prior to alleged offences, it is always in the defendant’s interests to instruct a pharmaceutical physician with an interest in forensic pharmacology to provide an expert opinion as to the possible role played by these substances on their client’s behaviour.
The focus of this brief introduction to forensic pharmacology will be on medicines prescribed by qualified doctors, although even if the substances have not been prescribed – if the defendant is not aware of the ingestion – the role played by the substances is usually taken into account by juries and the court.
IF INDECENT images have been deleted from the computer, can an individual still be charged with possession?
THE CASE of R v Ross Warwick Porter5 considered offences that related to the making of indecent photographs of a child under s1(1)(a) Protection of Children Act 1978 and of possessing indecent photographs of children contrary to s160(1) Criminal Justice Act 1988. However, the images in question had been deleted by the defendant before his arrest and were retrieved by the authorities only with the support of specialist forensic technologies and expertise.
LET ME SAY right at the beginning that I will be expressing a personal view here. Other psychiatrists may approach assessment differently.
Ultimately, the assessment of a client within litigation proceedings is essentially the same process as the assessment of a patient for treatment, but clearly for a very different purpose and with a very different result.
“OF COURSE I had my lights on!” is the familiar cry of the collision victim, but when everything points to the contrary, what techniques can the legal profession employ to discover the truth?
The ‘on or off’ status of a car’s lights prior to a collision can often be cited as a direct cause of the incident, but how can the status of the lamp be proved, particularly if it was damaged in the impact?
