Expert Witness Journal Issue 63 October 2025 - Flipbook - Page 40
Judge rejects anonymity plea
from discredited family expert
A judge has recommended an expert witness repay her fee to the local authority after all parties
in a recent family court hearing agreed that the registered clinical psychologist’s report was
“fundamentally flawed”.
Introduction
In the recent case of Liverpool City Council v Ms A &
Ors 2025] EWHC 1474 (Fam), a registered clinical psychologist was appointed to conduct a psychological assessment of the father of a seven-year-old boy, as part
of its assessment of whether, after three years in foster
care, the child should be returned to his father’s care
in Italy. The child was of dual Romanian and Italian
heritage.
fundamentally flawed by reason of her failure to
proceed on the basis of the factual findings made by
[the judge in the domestic abuse case]”.
Harris continued: “The fundamental difficulty is that
contrary to the duties of an expert, [the expert in this
case] did not consider the Court's findings within that
broader framework of assessment but challenged the
validity of the findings themselves. It is not a case of
different professionals utilising different assessment
tools, but a court appointed expert failing to proceed
on the basis of the facts as determined by the Court in
carrying out the risk assessment as instructed.”
The expert was appointed due to her being dual
qualified in Italy and the UK. However, on receiving
the report, all parties unanimously agreed that she
had “wholly misunderstood and failed to comply with
her instructions as an expert”. An alternative
psychologist had to be instructed.
Responding to the expert’s complaint that she was not
given an opportunity to respond to concerns before a
new psychologist was appointed, the judge said,
“given the fundamental and pervasive nature of this
failing, the Court is satisfied it was not susceptible to
remedy through the raising of questions or points of
clarification.”
What conclusions did the expert witness reach?
One of the key issues addressed in the expert’s report
was whether the child’s father posed a risk of domestic abuse, given that he had physically assaulted the
child’s mother several years earlier.
She added, “The Court also has to note that [the expert’s] detailed response, continues to conflate the factual findings of the Court (which are not subject to
question or challenge), with the process of assessing
current risk.”
The expert concluded there was no risk - but the way
in which she came to this conclusion was what
challenged the integrity of her report. Rather than
drawing her conclusion based on her interview with
the subject of her report, she based it on her theory
that the domestic abuse finding itself was wrong.
Why did the expert witness’ request for anonymity
in the judgment fail?
The expert requested anonymity in the judgment but
was refused on the basis that her request did not meet
the criteria, for example, to ensure the anonymisation
of the child/family or to prevent a credible threat to
an expert’s safety. Harris said there was a clear public
interest in publishing the names of expert’s that have
not met their duty to the court.
"I disagree with the finding about his violent nature in reference to the hospital record brought as evidence by [Mrs. A]
as the record do not specify the name of the partner involved
in that incident and [Mrs. A] was in a relationship with Mr.
U as well as Mr. O at the time of the incident,” the expert’s
report stated.
“Since Mr. O has not been charge[d] by the Italian local
authority for this incident, this evidence is not an acceptable
for me; especially considering that there is no further evidence
that Mr. O has been violent before or after this incident or in
any other romantic relationship.
“The Court observes that experts have clear and
important duties to the Court as set out within Part 25
of the Family Procedure Rules 2010. It is vital instructed experts understand those rules and comply
with them. If they fail in those duties, it not only causes
harmful delay and significant cost to the public purse,
but undermines fair, sound and just decision-making
by the courts,” she said.
“In my professional opinion, this evidence is also not acceptable as the court demonstrated that [Mrs. A] has res[orted] to
lying and manipulate facts according to her benefit and the
partner she chose in such circumstances […]. Ultimately, it is
clear that the competitions and animosity between the fathers
fueled by the ambiguous and enmeshed behaviors of [Mrs. A]
towards the fathers, has often led to conflictual relationship
between these parties.”
“Whilst no doubt publication may be uncomfortable
for [the expert] and may impact on her professional
standing, she has not been able to point to any
matters that would engage her Article 8 rights in any
significant way.”
What were the issues with the expert witness’ report?
In her ruling, Ms Justice Harris stated that the expert
witness’ “conclusions and recommendations were
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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2025
