EXPERT witnesses have been a puzzle for the legal system for more than a century. The book Laws of Men and Laws of Nature traces their tale back to 18the-century arguments about the causes of the decline of Wells harbour on England’s east coast (New Scientist, 28 August, p 51). More recent cases have brought into focus the more human consequences of flawed expert evidence.
Hazel Blears, the Home Office minister responsible for crime reduction, policing and community safety, tells me that there are five important issues involved in ensuring the quality of expert evidence used in the investigation and prosecution of crime. Expert witnesses must be competent in the field in which they are to give evidence; they must restrict their evidence to that area; they must act with honesty, integrity and impartiality; their evidence must be based on sound scientific principles and supported by sufficient evidence; and they must make clear any limitations of techniques.
Interestingly, Blears says that the fourth condition, relating to sound scientific principles, “is more difficult to achieve for a number of reasons”. She wants to ensure that the police and criminal justice system have access to the latest technology, but must not “fall into the trap of employing what might be termed ‘junk science’. This requires some method of determining when a technique has reached a level of maturity such that we can have confidence in it.”
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One of the difficulties that the courts face is that people outside the expert scientific community may not be well placed to evaluate the validity of a new or developing technique. Equally, Blears notes, there is a need to ensure that any criticism of a technique is justified. She points to “a number of examples, particularly within the medical community, of a relatively small number of authors publishing work that, although discounted by the expert community, has been used to criticise techniques or treatments”.
I am delighted that the Home Office takes the issue so seriously.
THE work of the UK’s National Centre for the three Rs governing animal research – Replacement, Refinement and Reduction — runs right into the issue of product licensing. Both British and European Union legislation require animal data on medicines before they can be granted a licence. For other chemical products, only licences for new substances require animal data.
All this will change with the EU’s chemical directive for the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (REACH). Lord Sainsbury, the minister for science and technology, assures me that the government is working hard to make certain that this does not lead to a massive increase in animal testing.
These matters were discussed in detail in a recent Westminster Hall debate in London initiated by Ian Gibson, chair of the Select Committee on Science and Technology. Interested readers can find further details in Hansard (9 September, column 325WH) or at .
