Few reported cases assist as to expert evidence in cases of harassment and on the issue of injury to feelings as distinct from psychiatric injury. This summary should be read for this reason. It illustrates how the expert should respond to less than neutral instructions. It illustrates how cardiological evidence was analysed in order for the court to conclude that the defendant’s course of conduct had caused a myocardial infarction. It also reveals the charitable aspect of pro bono legal practice.   

Wei v Long [2025] EWHC 912 (KB)

This case is of obvious importance to experts authorised by the Family Court to be instructed in public law proceedings but it has implications for all experts whose fees are to be paid by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA).

K, Re & Re S (Legal Aid: Experts' Fees) [2025] EWFC 100 

In this road traffic accident case where there was a claim for psychiatric injury, the two psychiatric experts produced between them 14 reports, including addenda and other admissible communications. The fundamental disagreement was the diagnosis: PTSD or adjustment disorder. It appears that four of the reports by the defendant’s expert were in rebuttal of the opinion of the plaintiff’s expert. This summary does not reflect the considerable extent to which the court had to analyse the evidence as to diagnosis. In the court’s judgment diagnosis hardly mattered. The judge said that more important, in his view, was the impact that the condition had on the plaintiff’s everyday functioning and lifestyle. Then when awarding damages, he said that the psychiatric damage suffered by the plaintiff attributable to the accident could be described as moderately severe whether that be under a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder or psychiatric damage generally. 

There was no dispute about the expert evidence in this case but it is of interest for several reasons. First, it sets out in some detail the evidence of experts in educational psychology and occupational therapy and it therefore provides examples for those healthcare specialties of how to make their bodies of knowledge understandable to a tribunal. Second, it illustrates the role of experts when their evidence is admitted by a specialist tribunal. Third, it sets out the test of which experts need to be aware in cases of alleged disability discrimination arising from a school’s treatment of a pupil with behavioural difficulties. Fourth, although psychiatrists and psychologists are often advised to keep the unconscious out of the witness box, for reasons to do with proof, it is encouraging to find a tribunal accepting such evidence.

B v The Proprietor of St Dominic's Grammar School [2025] UKUT 48 (AAC) 

As in many family cases, the issue here was the cause of the child’s injuries. It includes a distinction to be made between handling in hospital, such as holding of wrists for blood to be drawn, application of masks to assist breathing and holding of head still, to what would be expected in a normal domestic setting. It illustrates how a CMV infection complicated the court’s analysis of the evidence.

N, In the Matter Of [2024] EWFC 378 

For the specialists this case illustrates how the court investigates case of perplexing presentations in children and the importance of considering as many as possible explanations. This was a case where the medical history was complex and where the material events occurred over a 5 months’ admission, so the volume of medical records must have been immense. The court was obviously greatly assisted by the expert factual evidence of one of the child’s consultants, specifically his summary of the child’s medical conditions and his table of medication. The weakness of one of the experts was that he had not sufficiently familiarised himself with the contents of the medical records and was not as familiar as with the chronology of the case as he might have been if he had created a chronology in his own investigation of the case.   

A Local Authority v Mother [2024] EWHC 3511 (Fam)

Personal injury claims are being brought by approximately 220 pilots and cabin crew at the High Court in London on the grounds of aerotoxic syndrome (ATS). This group of claimants includes 51 claims which were issued by Thompsons in March 2019 involving pilots and cabin crew working for EasyJet, British Airways, Thomas Cook, Jet2 and Virgin Atlantic. These two claims are not included in these ongoing English collective proceedings. These were claims by two pilots who lost the chance of bringing successful claims as a result of the admitted negligence of a Scottish law practice.

Gough v Cannons Law Practice; Montague-Trenchard v Cannons Law Practice (Court of Session) [2025] CSOH 28 

In short, the case illustrates a very common situation in which, on the basis of what is often an appropriately diagnosed psychological condition or mental disorder, it is asserted that a litigant is not capable of participating in legal proceedings. In criminal cases, in relation to the accused, the issue is usually fitness to plead and stand trial. In civil proceedings the issue is litigation capacity. As is often the case, the court’s decision is influenced by how the litigant has functioned in previous cases or earlier in the instant proceedings.

F v W [2024] IEHC 631

If, which is not clear, medical evidence that assists in the application of the adult dependent relative provisions as to entrance clearance for dependent adults to enter the UK is usually provided by doctors in the country in which the dependent relatives reside, this judgment may be of little interest to healthcare experts in the UK. However, it makes a very basic point about the format of an expert report and it illustrates how important it is to know and understand the particular test or rule that is applicable.

Ali v Entry Clearance Officer [2024] UKAITUR UI2024000707

Experts are advised, if possible, to avoid expressing opinions on the basis of possibility. The usually applicable stand of proof is the civil standard – the balance of probabilities or more probable than not. The criminal standard of proof is beyond reasonable doubt (and not beyond all reasonable [sic] doubt as it is sometimes misquoted). In this case it was submitted that the expert used the terms "possibility", "high possibility" and "extremely high possibility" interchangeably and that this was insufficient to satisfy the criminal standard of proof. However, when the court analysed the expert’s report as a whole, it was clear that a tribunal of fact could safely conclude that the criminal standard of proof was satisfied.

Government of Japan v Chappell [2025] EWHC 166