Witnesses: experts chief warns of image problem

Solicitors owe a 'crucial duty' to ensure the evidence of expert witnesses they call is 'well founded', the chairman of the Institute of Expert Witnesses (EWI) said last week.


James Badenoch QC told delegates at the EWI annual conference that experts are allowed to be wrong, provided their opinion is 'honestly held and carefully expressed'. He said: 'Lawyers do owe a crucial duty, and must fully play their part, to ensure that the evidence of experts is well founded, fairly expressed, and appropriately directed.'


Mr Badenoch added that there is 'currently a real problem' in 'the way in which expert witnesses are perceived by the public at large'.


He said: 'This problem of perception really does matter. Recent experiences have suggested to me that there is a quite widespread misconception of what precisely an expert witness is, what qualifies him, how he is enlisted, and how often and why an expert witness is needed as part of the justice process.


'There is in some quarters the perception that there is a generic group of people who style themselves as "expert witnesses" in order to ply the lucrative trade of appearing in court, who are ready, in return for fat fees, to deliver an opinion on any subject which the lawyers consider may help their client's cause.


'In my younger days at the bar there probably were some experts who earned a living that way, the so-called "hired guns"... I can say with confidence that the bad old days of the hired gun are thankfully long gone.' He added: 'There needs to be wider recognition of the extent to which the trial process, and the right decision at the end of it, requires and depends upon the willingness of specialists in a host of different fields to provide expert opinions.'