The Team

Qualifications
MB BS LLM MRCGP FRCPsych MFFLM

Accreditation
Approved clinician status for the purposes of section 145(1)(including approval under section 12(2)) of the Mental Health Act 1983. Cardiff University accredited Expert Witness (Civil and Family). Medico-legal Expert Witness Certificate (Family) from City University and Inns of Court School of Law.

Memberships/Roles
British Association for Psychopharmacology, Expert Witness Institute, Academy of Experts, Society of Expert Witnesses, Institute of Directors & Royal Society of Medicine (Fellow). Secretary of Private and Independent Practice Special Interest Group, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Member of Psychiatrists’ Support Service, Royal College of Psychiatrists, Member of Special Committee on Professional Practice and Ethics, Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Areas of expertise
Mental Illness, Personality Disorder, Alcohol and Drug Misuse.

Biography
I trained as a doctor at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London. I worked as a GP in Australia and did medicine and paediatrics in New Zealand. In the UK, I spent some years working in A & E, orthopaedics and ENT before I qualified as a general practitioner after training in Reading and Basingstoke.

I then trained as a psychiatrist in Basingstoke and Bristol and completed a master’s in mental health law in 2005. I have been involved in expert witness work for approximately 27 years and have been a consultant for about 25 years. I am trained in report writing and court work and produce approximately 120 reports a year for the courts.

I spent over 10 years working in a community mental health team in the NHS, latterly combining this with rehabilitation psychiatry. I then worked in an Assertive Outreach Team and was instrumental in setting up a Community Acute Service (an Acute Day Hospital combined with a Crisis and Home Treatment Service), also in the NHS, both of which I worked in for almost 7 years. I then worked for a year in an Immigration Removal Centre treating practising adult and addiction psychiatry.

After a couple of years spent developing my private practice, I returned to the NHS part time in 2015 as a liaison psychiatrist in Stoke Mandeville and Wycombe Hospitals. For three and a half years I was the medical director of Apple Hill (rehabilitation) Hospital in Berkshire. I have a special interest in occupational health psychiatry and have consulted for the Occupational Health and Wellbeing Department of Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust for the last 10 years.

I keep up to date in psychiatry and expert work through Continuing Professional Development and am in good standing with regard to appraisals and last revalidated with the GMC in June 2018. I sit on several committees at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. I have published over 30 papers, monographs and articles as well as five books.

I have a special interest in family work and provide reports in public and private law cases. Much of my work concerns people with drug and alcohol problems. I also see people whose main problems are mental illness or personality disorder. I am accustomed to appearing in court and before tribunals.

I also prepare reports in personal injury cases. Though most of my work has historically been for claimants, I am very open to working for defendants or as a Single Joint Expert. The diagnoses most often encountered in these cases are Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Specific Phobia, and Adjustment Disorder.

I also see a number of people for reports in criminal cases, including where sexual offending plays a role. I have undertaken a number of cases for Customs and Excise and the Crown Prosecution Service, including alleged rapes and murders. I see people before Employment and Housing Tribunals with a variety of different conditions and in clinical negligence cases where a psychiatric condition is at issue.

To see my publications, click here.

To see my full CV, click here.