Case Updates

This month on the Expert Matters Podcast, we take a look at the EWI Annual Conference which was held on 19 June. The Conference got off to a great start with a keynote speech on AI & the Expert Witness by Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, and carried on with great speakers and panels. Join us on a trip down memory lane as we relive our key highlights from the event. 

The decision in Evie Toombes v Dr Mitchell [2021] EWHC 3234 (QB) offers important lessons for expert witnesses across all disciplines. Although the case arose from a routine primary care consultation on pre-conception folic acid advice, the legal principles extend well beyond general practice. The case centred on an apparently straightforward clinical encounter that raised significant issues of duty of care, foreseeability, causation, and the standard of care. 

For expert witnesses, the judgment reinforced the importance of objective, evidence based opinions, careful analysis of contemporaneous records, and clear reasoning. 

The claimant sought damages amounting to the difference between the £16.9 million contract sale price from a failed house sale and the sum ultimately obtained for the property of £10.1 million, less that £2.5 million forfeited deposit. After finding the expert evidence compromised by the information provided to the experts, the judge set out a better approach to expert evidence in property valuation.

The decision in O'Neill v Scottish Ambulance Service Board [2025] CSOH 17 provides important guidance on the legal and professional standards applicable to remote clinical triage. The court reaffirmed that clinicians conducting telephone assessments are held to the same professional standards as those undertaking face-to-face consultations.

The Claimant suffered serious injuries in a road traffic accident after the Defendant, who was driving out of a side road, collided with the Claimant’s motorbike. Despite being aware of surveillance evidence before preparing his last report, the Claimant’s orthopaedic expert did not reveal his true opinions on the Claimant’s malingering until cross-examination.

Grant Greening-Steer v Derek Ainge [2026] EWHC 1239 (KB)

Dr Frances Cranfield is a GP, Assistant Coroner, and a founding member of the Expert Witness Institute. With three decades of experience spanning civil and criminal courts, coroners’ inquests, General Medical Council hearings, and major public inquiries, she is one of the most experienced Medical Expert Witnesses in the country. Here, she tells us what drew her to this work, what keeps her in it, and what she thinks the profession needs to face next

After summarising the case law, the court in this case stated that there is a high threshold to be reached in order for ill health or physical disability to impinge upon the court's approach to assessing the appropriate method of sentencing an offender. This is not to say that ill health or disability will never be taken into consideration as is indicated by these terms: ‘not generally’, ‘not automatically’, ‘can take account’, ‘may enable’, ‘not in itself’, ‘it may be permissible’, ‘in appropriate cases’, ‘permissible to have regard’ and ‘purely on the basis’.

Lavery, R v (Sentencing Remarks) [2026] NICC 5

The parties disagreed on the extent of the repairs required to the joists, and the manner in which the repairs should be effected, following the collapse of part of the ceiling in a building owned by the Claimant and partly leased by the Defendant. The Judge found that the Defendant’s expert’s failure to engage with all the available evidence and to seek to undertake a fuller examination of the joists meant that his evidence did not fully address the issues before the court.

We have previously considered the problem for experts of redacted medical records. This, and the actual disclosure of medical, and also safeguarding, records is an issue in this ongoing personal injury case.

Although it illustrates the tests that the court will apply in deciding on disclosure of records, it also seems to illustrate the oft made point that a case turns on its own facts. In this case disclosure of records relating to a particular letter became unnecessary when it was established that the letter did not relate to the claimant. The relevance of the claimant’s mother’s immigration records arose out of the coincidence in time of a stage in her appeal process and a deterioration in the claimant’s condition.

RFV v Middleham [2026] EWHC 916 (KB) 

Recent events in the middle east have reminded us all how quickly dangerous situations can arise. Members may regularly act in conflict zones, or be offered work that requires them to travel to conflict zones to, for example, inspect property damage, etc.  

Before you accept instructions for international work in conflict zones, we recommend you stop and consider these points set out in this article.