United Kingdom www.profkeithrix.co.uk how it was the case of Esther Dyson, whose indictment for ‘the wilful murder of her bastard child’ in 1831, that established the procedure for determining fitness to plead and stand trial which was subsequently followed in the Pritchard case resulting in rules which should perhaps be known not as ‘the Pritchard Rules’ but as ‘the Dyson Rules’. For my own professional development as an expert I have obtained EWI Certified Expert and Academy of Experts Accredited Expert status. I found both processes rewarding and refreshing. This year’s interesting cases have included several Road Traffic Act cases where the issue has been blood or needle phobia, an Employment Tribunal remedies hearing case for which I had to assist as to a psychiatrist’s earnings from expert witness practice and a number of the Post Office ‘Horizon’ cases. BMedBiol, MB, ChB, MPhil, LLM, MD, CBiol, MRSB, FAE, FEWI Cert, FRCPsych, Hon FFFLM FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY EXPERT OF THE YEAR About Keith For 40 years I have provided expert evidence in personal injury litigation, including clinical negligence cases, the criminal jurisdiction, coroners’ courts, capacity, professional regulatory and employment cases and in capital cases in the Caribbean and Africa. I am Visiting Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University of Chester, and Honorary Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. My main interests are the education, training and support of expert witnesses. I am a member of the Membership Committee of the Expert Witness Institute (EWI) and a member of the Family Justice Council’s Experts in the Family Justice System Committee. I am Expert Witness Lead for the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine (FFLM) and the Royal College of Physicians. I have again been involved in organising The Grange Annual Conference for psychiatrists engaged in medicolegal work. This year’s judicial lectures will be given by The Hon Mr Maurice Collins, The Supreme Court, Ireland, and Mr Justice David Williams, High Court of England and Wales. This year has seen the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) make my feedback tool, ‘Multisource Assessment of Expert Practice’ (MAEP), available to all expert witnesses and not just psychiatrists (https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/improving-care/ccqi/ multi-source-feedback/maep). The MAEP team has also taken over distribution of my monthly ‘Expert Witness Matters’ newsletter for psychiatrists and psychologists. I send out a similar newsletter through the FFLM to forensic physicians and other medical experts. Also for the RCPsych, with the late Nigel Eastman, Gwen Adshead, Nicholas Hallett and James Briscoe, I have updated its Report Responsibilities of psychiatrists who provide expert evidence to courts and tribunals. My main academic activity has continued to be as an editor in chief, with Dr Michael Powers KC, of Cambridge University Press’s Expert Healthcare Evidence series. The second edition of my Expert Psychiatric Evidence is the lead volume, Expert Musculoskeletal and Orthopaedic Evidence is in press and I am working with Mr Justice David Williams and Mr Justice Nigel Poole, as co editors, on plans for Expert Healthcare Evidence in the Family Court and Court of Protection. With my colleague Nick Hallett, in a chapter ‘Fitness to plead and stand trial – from the Ecclesfield Cotton Mill dam to Capitol Hill’, in Gall & Payne-James (eds) Current Practice in Forensic Medicine, Vol 3, Wiley, I have set out Sector Psychiatry Area of Expertise Keith specialises in the Psychiatric assessment of adults 31
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