“I hurt you because I love you” – what did TV’s Silent Witness get right and wrong about the treatment of domestic violence in the family courts?

by Malvika Jaganmohan | Jan 27, 2020 | Comment

No one is ever going to give the BBC TV show Silent Witness any prizes for being particularly factually accurate (what do you MEAN forensic pathologists don’t actually run around solving crimes!?). But who cares, right? It’s good, dramatic telly. That was all well and...

No take-backs? The parents who changed their mind about adoption and the local authority who got it very, very wrong

by Malvika Jaganmohan | Oct 14, 2019 | Cases, FCReportingWatch

Malvika Jaganmohan is a pupil barrister at Coram Chambers, a specialist family law chambers in London. She tweets as @MalvikaJaganmo1 All paragraph references in bold refer to the judgment which is publicly available on Bailii.  Background The case of Foster...

F (A Child: Fact-Finding Appeal) [2019] EWCA Civ 1244: what’s the difference between an expert witness and a witness with expertise?

by Malvika Jaganmohan | Aug 9, 2019 | Cases, Explanation, FCReportingWatch

This is a post from Malvika Jaganmohan, who tweets as @MalvikaJaganmo1. I have already written for this blog on the shortage of expert witnesses in the family courts: my case summary of West Sussex County Council v B looks at the potential for miscarriages...

The President’s Expert Witness Working Group Symposium: in which lawyers (for once) were not the loudest voices in the room

by Malvika Jaganmohan | Jul 6, 2019 | Analysis, FCReportingWatch, Transparency News

This is a post from Malvika Jaganmohan, one of our new contributors, who tweets as @MalvikaJaganmo1. A collective of medical and legal professionals descended on the Royal Courts of Justice on 4thJuly 2019 to discuss the current shortage of medical experts in the...

Expert Witnesses: The Crisis in Family Courts

by Malvika Jaganmohan | Jun 26, 2019 | Analysis, Cases, Comment, FCReportingWatch

This is a first post from Malvika Jaganmohan, one of our new contributors. Malvika tweets as @MalvikaJaganmo1 Any family lawyer will tell you that finding a competent independent expert who can report in a timely manner is the Holy Grail of the family justice...