73 LAWYER MONTHLY EXPERT WITNESS AWARDS 2025 and painstaking approach was confirmed as being the way forward in all forensic evidence cases; with orders issued for all parties, in future, to assist the Judge to consider the hair strand test results, in the context of the whole of the evidence, including: a) The statements of those who are alleged to have exposed the children to the drugs identified; b) Other evidence (i.e., from observation) which may suggest drug use within the home; c) Other evidence which may suggest that drugs are not used within the home; d) The presentation of the children and the adults; e) The history of the family generally.” (Hair Strand Testing – A Cautionary Tale, Kira Pattenden 15 Winckley Square Chambers). It should be noted, in this regard, that an expert having acquired over long periods of time and experience, multiple areas of expertise in their general field, should be considered to be not only an advantage, but in fact a highly desirable necessity, and that can provide unique perception of the true nature and meaning of the evidence, and that would simply not be able to be reached through having just one precise and limited area of expertise; and which resulting conclusions can always be assessed, and the correctness of the conclusions verified, by other experts. AMYGDALIN PRECURSOR OF HYDROGEN CYANIDE (HCN) IN APRICOT KERNELS AND FLAX SEEDS, OVER-CONSUMPTION OF WHICH CAN BE POTENTIALLY LETHAL TO HUMANS sections) to a plethora of solved cases, testifies to the importance of this approach, most significantly in R v Muragamoorthy (accusation of infant murder, Old Bailey, 2006), and where one three line entry in a paramedic report describing the situation of a “frozen jaw” in the young victim, confirmed the likelihood of camphor, accidentally applied, in overdose, as a folk remedy, being the likely cause of death. Such attention to detail not infrequently requires over 400 hours work (unsurprisingly not infrequently having to be currently carried out mostly pro-bono). The issue, will be, as always, the ability to ring fence funding for such efforts and which critically improve the protection of the Jury Trial System from Miscarriages of Justice. This synthesis of forensic evidence and also circumstantial evidence, (including the ever improving content of the peer reviewed scientific literature, right up to the date of the appearance of experts’ in Court to give evidence), has been found to not infrequently be able to present conclusive proof (agreed by all parties), and that is increasingly assisting the Courts to more reliably and accurately evaluate the truth of the most complex case situations, for presentation to the Jury. This was demonstrated by an extraordinary recent success in the case of R v Shahid Ali (Birmingham Crown Court (Murder) (2024)), where after a 25 hour day replying to urgent reports exchanged mid trial, service of my final report (written overnight), containing such analysis and correlation, led to agreement by all parties, the prosecution folding their case, and the defendant walking free from the Court. Also in the case of Re D (Children: Interim Care Order: Hair Strand Testing) [2024] EWCA Civ 498 iii), and where my detailed
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