Medico-legal work is fascinating, intellectually stimulating and professionally rewarding, and psychiatrists will be required to provide professional reports and most will provide expert evidence. This book explains how reports should be adapted to the requirements of different courts. It advises what needs to be included and what is better left out. There are helpful lists of key points to consider in preparing a report tailored to a specific situation, and the legal and cultural background as to how current issues have evolved is explained.
Although the book is written with a didactic perspective, it contains a wealth of personal experience and anecdotes. It explains how laws and principles have changed in recent times, for example the principles of the Wolf Report and ‘hot-tubbing’, and how the Disability Discrimination Act has been replaced by the Equal Opportunities Act. It gives advice how to conduct ourselves in court and the tricks that barristers may use to try to unsettle the psychiatric expert. Rix covers thorny issues, such as fees, how to address a judge and, of course, provides templates for different types of report writing. Expert Psychiatric Evidence can be used as a reference book to look at various specific issues to address when providing, for example, an opinion on testamentary capacity or fitness to plead. It is written in an easy, entertaining and humorous style. As with all professional activity, its benefits lie not only in providing new information, but also in reinforcing what the reader thought he already knew. The greatest recommendation is that the book has had a tendency to disappear repeatedly from my desk in the brief time that I have had a review copy, as many colleagues have borrowed it for a few hours to look up particular points of interest.
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