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An Expert witness possesses specialised knowledge on a subject by virtue of his having studied that subject and/or possesses additional qualifications in it. Whilst this could ensure the competence of an Expert Witness, it does not necessarily ensure the admissibility of evidence.

Admissibility of expert evidence came under greater scrutiny of the courts in recent times and in America, first the Frye [3] Test (general acceptance) and later Daubert [4] (scientific validation) led to the judges looking more closely at the admissibility of scientific evidence. The US rule 702 of the Federal rules of evidence was subsequently revised in 2009 to require three main criteria to be satisfied: “that the testimony is based on facts, it is a product of reliable principles and methods and that the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case”.

Is it possible to avoid the services of an expert witness? Where possible, it was felt that this should be the case. The Turner principle was so named after Turner [5] where Lawton LJ stated “If on the proven facts a judge or jury can form their own conclusions without help, then the opinion of an expert is unnecessary. In such a case if it is given dressed up in scientific jargon it may make judgment more difficult. The fact that an expert witness had impressive qualifications does not by that fact alone make his opinion on matters of human nature any more helpful than the jurors themselves; but there is a danger that they may think it does.” This led to potentially useful psychiatric expert evidence becoming inadmissible particularly if the defendant was not suffering from any psychiatric illness at the time of the alleged offence (Turner).

This was repeated in Bonython [6] where King CJ felt that the relevant questions were “(a) whether the subject matter of the opinion is such that a person without instruction or experience in the area of knowledge or human experience would be able to form a sound judgment on the matter without the assistance of witnesses possessing special knowledge or experience in the area, and (b) whether the subject matter of the opinion forms part of a body of knowledge or experience which is sufficiently organised or recognised to be accepted as a reliable body of knowledge or experience”

The Law Commission’s [7] proposal was to entrust the ‘gate-keeping’ role to trial judges so that they could sift out the ‘junk Science’ and had a greater responsibility and power to determine admissibility of expert evidence.

Where expert evidence is deemed necessary, in an adversarial judicial system, it is customary for the claimant and the defendant to engage the services of their own experts to provide evidence, where they could afford one. However, on occasion, one of the parties might not be able to afford the costs of expert evidence and could therefore be at a disadvantage.

In the 1990s the courts increasingly came to rely upon expert evidence and this was particularly true in complex cases where scientific evidence was important in arriving at a decision. This obviously needed the interpretation of a scientific expert and resulted in increasing the costs of litigation. Lord Woolf was concerned that this would render litigation and justice inaccessible to the poorer individuals. This led to an attempt at some judicial reforms to reduce the c