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EXPERT WITNESS

  • Medico-legal assessments and reports for personal injury, clinical negligence, family law, immigration, and employment​ cases

  • ​Meticulous, rigorous expert reports that meet the demands of complex legal cases

  • Instructed by claimants, defendants, and as a single joint expert

  • Assessment of psychiatric disorders/mental health problems in children, adolescents, and adults

  • Assessments conducted in England and Scotland: in-person or online

Expert witness areas of expertise:

  • Personal injury/clinical negligence: psychiatric/psychological injuries and complex mental health problems following trauma, accidents, and breach of duty/negligence, including serious and catastrophic injury, historical abuse, discrimination, military claims, victims of crime and abuse

  • Family law: mental health of children and parents, parenting competence, family functioning, sibling and parent relationships, complex systemic dynamics, risk to children, residency, contact, ability to make and sustain changes, parental alienation

  • Risk assessment and management: suicide risk, sexual recidivism, sexually harmful behaviour, domestic abuse, intimate partner violence. Theory and evidence-based risk assessment and management, including capacity and motivation to change, protective factors, recommendations for management/treatment

  • Immigration/asylum: victims of torture and abuse, including human trafficking, deportation and its impact on couples and families, risk assessment

  • Employment: work-related stress, fitness to work, return to work, employment tribunals, psychiatric injury, bullying, harassment, discrimination

Professional competences:

  • Assessment of psychiatric disorders/mental health problems in children, adolescents, and adults

  • Clinical interview: conducting detailed assessments of complex mental health problems/disorders

  • Diagnosis of psychiatric disorders and personality disorders using DSM-5-TR and ICD-11

  • Psychometric/psychological testing

  • Psychological formulation to describe and explain mental health problems/disorders, anticipate and overcome barriers to change (which is relevant to prognosis), and guide individualised treatment plans and evidence-based interventions. Formulation goes beyond reductionistic diagnostic labels and uses psychological theory and evidence to explain complex mental health problems/disorders, including why a specific individual developed particular psychiatric/psychological injuries/problems when they did, problematic systemic relationships, the contributing role of social factors, and how mental and physical health problems inter-relate.

Dr Siddaway combines NHS clinical practice with expert witness work and conducting and supervising research and works across the lifespan – with children, adolescents, and adults. He is a trusted expert witness for personal injury, clinical negligence, family law, immigration, and employment cases, and is instructed by claimants, defendants, and as a single joint expert. Known for producing meticulous, rigorous, accessible reports, he delivers high-quality assessments that meet the demands of complex legal cases. His very happy to informally discuss potential cases and can assess and report with tight turnaround times if needed.

Dr Siddaway conducts expert witness assessments in-person and remotely. He is happy to travel as needed for assessments. Of note, the evidence-base indicates that assessments conducted remotely are generally equivalent to those conducted face-to-face in terms of validity, safety, and acceptability (click here for a summary and details about when Dr Siddaway does and does not conduct assessments remotely). 

Dr Siddaway's Expert Witness CV

Please get in touch to discuss instructions and timescales. References and sample reports are available on request.

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