| SPOTLIGHT |
Testing hair for evidence of excessive alcohol consumption is a technique that must be treated with “the exercise of considerable caution”, Mr Justice Moylan has said in a case where hair was tested to try to establish whether a mother had been drinking excessively.
The London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames had used the test, which measures the presence of ethyl glucuronide and fatty acid ethyl esters in hair.
This appeared to show excessive alcohol consumption, but during the course of the case the mother’s solicitors by chance received a promotional mailing from a hair testing laboratory that indicated that the earlier result was questionable.
She had a history of severe alcohol abuse, which, with other factors, had resulted in her older children being removed from her care.
Use of the hair test raised issues of sufficient public interest for this part of his judgement in care proceedings to be published, the judge said. The rest remains private.
Mr Justice Moylan said: “It is very regrettable that this issue was not resolved earlier because it has resulted in the determination of these care proceedings, by an agreed supervision order, being delayed by some eight months.
“This has, with hindsight, manifestly not been in the interests of the children the subject of these proceedings.”
He said Richmond had, in the light of evidence on the reliability of hair testing for alcohol “decided that any future testing should be by way of urine testing”.
The evidence given by two expert witnesses and the solicitors showed the need for caution when hair tests for alcohol were relied upon, “both generally and particularly in isolation”. These conclusions only emerged during the course of the oral hearing and “should have been apparent at a much earlier stage of the proceedings”.
The judge concluded: “I regret to say that the hair testing evidence given in this case failed the parties and in particular the children.”
