Testing Time for Psychologists: The Psychologist as an Expert Witness

Abstract

A variety of legal and quasi-legal tribunals use psychologists as expert witnesses, giving evidence on issues ranging from whether the siting of a nuclear power station may be damaging to the psychological health of the local community, to how sexual harassment at work might affect a woman’s work performance — an issue recently raised by a psychologist called in an Industrial Tribunal considering an unfair dismissal. More familiarly perhaps, psychologists find themselves asked to provide assessments for the civil and criminal courts, most commonly where personal injury litigation is involved or a client seen in practice has become a defendant or victim in a criminal case. More routinely still, changes in the Mental Health Act have meant frequent involvement in Mental Health Tribunals. Thus the psychologist has become increasingly caught up in legal or semi-legal procedures be that in the Magistrates Court, Crown and County Court, or the Appeal Courts, as well as within a wide range of other legalistic fora. It is with the psychologist’s role as courtroom witness however, that this paper is primarily concerned.