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Monday 25 July 2016

Scandal of 'unqualified' experts who advise our family courts: Decisions about the care of thousands of children routinely flawed

In an article written for the Mail on Line in March 2012, Katherine Faulkner reported on the number of 'unqualified' experts who advise our Family Courts.  The full article can be read here

In 2011 & 2012 my brother and his family were subjected to this flawed evidence by so called 'experts', their 'expert' psychologists or psychiatrists report had been carried out by people who were writing reports in areas entirely beyond their knowledge and qualifications.

Their 'expert' even lied in their report into my brother, stating that they had spent 7 hours with him.  This meeting started at 10am on a Tuesday morning, my brother had travelled 2 and a half hours for this meeting which started late and was home by 5pm that evening.  Meaning that the meeting could not possible have finished any later than 2pm.  Anyone with an ounce of intelligence can work out that 10am - 2pm is no way near 7 hours.  Yet his so called 'experts' claimed in writing that this was a fact.

This so called 'expert' witness was supposed to be independent, yet large amounts of his report are exact extracts from other reports used against my brother and his family for the court.  The professor, an 'expert' witness for the Local Authority who under took my brothers case showed a complete lack of understanding regarding this case and his report was mainly opinion based on no formal assessment.

But, detrimentally his evidence was cited as fact.

Even in the report written regarding the children's step father was a crock.  The step father stated that he had joined the RAF Cadets at age 14, but left at 16 because his unit were being sent to the Iraq war and he didn't want to go to war!  The 'expert' witness commented that he felt this kind of pressure was a catalyst for the step father.  Now, my family comes from an armed forces background.  Our father served for 26 years and was then retained as a contractor trainer by the MOD for an additional 10years.  But even with our background knowledge EVERYONE knows that the armed forces DO NOT send Cadets at 16 years old to a war.  This might have been historically done in WW1 or WW2 but seriously is not done now.  These are children whose closest dealing is learning how to march, salute even orienteering.  The step father is clearly lying but the 'expert' didn't even question it.

Yet you read his report into my brother and he has my brother growing up in a violent, abusive household where the father was never present.  Our father, who was a single parent bringing up 4 kids was apparently never at home yet managed to be abusive and violent.  This 'expert' has never met our father, yet thought nothing of defaming his character.  He made his assumptions based on the comment by my brother who said "we had to be aware, aware of the dangers", when read in context that comment isn't as incriminating as the 'expert' made it.  They were discussing our experiences as a family with a serving parent and the effect the IRA had on our childhood in the 1980's.  

I truly hope that our 'expert' witness is amongst those about to be outed as unqualified but in my opinion inept would cover it better.

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