• child abuse
• expert witness

The ideal expert witness is a person with special training, knowledge, or experience whose role is to aid the court. Re X (Non-Accidental Injury: Expert Evidence)¹ is the latest in a series of cases^2,3 in which the evidence of an expert witness has been criticised by a judge in a case involving alleged child abuse. The case is important not just because the same individual, Dr Colin Paterson, has been censured, thus calling into question his status as an expert witness in both civil and criminal cases, but also because there are more general lessons to be learned both from the criticisms aimed at the expert and from other more general issues arising from the case.

In Re X the local authority were seeking a care order on a child who had been admitted to hospital, aged 20 weeks, with a number of fractures. Both parents of the child denied causing any harm to her but neither of them suggested that she could have come to harm at the hands of a third party. The local authority’s case was that the child must have come by those fractures non-accidentally and that one of the parents was responsible. The parents instructed Dr Paterson, who put forward an alternative explanation for the injuries. He said the fractures had probably been caused by temporary brittle bone disease (TBBD).

In rejecting Dr Paterson’s evidence, Singer J pointed out a number of flaws in his evidence and concluded that Dr Paterson had fallen into the same trap as he had in the previous cases in which he was criticised. As a consequence, Singer J concluded that in future, before Dr Paterson is given leave to report in any case, his methodology and his credentials to express an …