Family Court judge publicly criticises expert witness over delays

A Family Court judge has severely criticised an expert witness over a lengthy failure to examine and report on two children.

In X And Y (Delay: Professional Conduct of Expert) (Rev 1) [2019] EWHC B9 (Fam) His Honour Clifford Bellamy, sitting as a deputy circuit judge, called the conduct of Dr Kathryn Ward unacceptable and below the standards expected by the court.

She had been appointed as an expert consultant paediatrician to carry out a medical assessment of two children X and Y.

Both have complex physical disabilities and learning needs and suffer from hereditary hypomyelination syndrome causing severe spastic diplegia and will need lifelong care.

Social workers from an unnamed local authority became involved because of concerns over whether they were receiving care appropriate to their conditions and in June 2018 the court granted interim care orders for both.

Dr Ward was appointed on 17 July and ordered to report on X and Y by 26 October.

The judge said Dr Ward had had a distinguished career as a paediatrician, and it was “particularly sad, therefore, that at the end of her career she should face the kind of criticisms from the court that I am about to set out in this judgment.

“Put shortly, the problem is one of delay and failing to honour commitments and promises made to the parties and, through them, to the Family Court.”

Dr Ward failed to report on time and during the winter of 2018-19 offered a series of reasons including an accident involving her son and suffering from gastroenteritis.

An order was made that Dr Ward must deliver her report by 20 February and appear before the court the following day if she did not.

But it became apparent that she had never examined X or Y.

Judge Bellamy noted: “In light of all the promises Dr Ward had made to him X's solicitor assumed (understandably, though wrongly as he now accepts) that Dr Ward had examined X. On 20 February it became clear that Dr Ward had not examined X. At the time this case last came before me on 21 February Dr Ward said that she would be able to see X 'one day next week.”

Y had not been examined either, with Dr Ward offering similar reason for delays.

The judge said it was “difficult to see how any fee could be justified” to Dr Ward.

He said if an expert had a good reason for seeking a delay a court would be unlikely to refuse but “what is not acceptable in the Family Court is the kind of conduct displayed by Dr Ward in this case…where the expert has given a succession of dates by which her reports would be delivered but, as is patently obvious, with no genuine or realistic expectation that any of the dates suggested could, in fact, be met”.

Dr Ward had apologised and she had decided not to accept any further instructions in cases in the Family Court.

But the judge said: “I am deeply concerned about the way Dr Ward has behaved in this case. It does not meet the standards expected of an expert witness or the expectations of the court in this particular case. It cannot be allowed to pass without comment. That comment should be placed in the public domain.”

Mark Smulian