The role of Expert Witnesses. Who IS an expert; and what exactly are they allowed to say? 

I instructed experts in proceedings in the Patents Court and in litigation in other jurisdictions. I am astonished that the courts (and defence lawyers) never challenged POL on Gareth Jenkins' position. It seems absolutely obvious that he could only be a fact expert - "this is the way that Horizon works". If you asked him his opinion on whether there were better ways of doing it, the almost inevitable (on the face of it, at least) answer is "no, this is the best way I can think of doing it" (because that's the way he did it!). It is so absurd that it still blows my mind when I think about it. To that extent, it is a failure of the legal system, not Jenkins', although his evidence before the Inquiry shows that he shoulders plenty of responsibilty nonetheless.

My late uncle was an ex-Shell toxicologist as well. Did we have the same uncle?

@@patrickbateman9197 Are shells toxic?

Me too. I do feel guilty about it though.

​@@artmedialawmedicine and veganism are a tricky one. ideally of course we'd move away from all animal products in medicine. I have to take some medicine that contains gelatine and lactose, so I balance it out best I can by writing to the companies to ask them to switch to vegan alternatives.

Al says below that no prep and natural is part of the channel trademark. I think its part of his disarming the opponent! Personally, I often leave my Zip undone as a display of self confidence!😄

Well done. Observation your an Expert!

Heh yeah, I do have the attention span of...ooh, the sun is back out.

Like any witness in a civl case, they can sit in. Although oftentimes they won't actually attend the trial. The idea being you do all the questions beforehand and they just submit a statement and a report. They can also usually listen to the other expert in a criminal trial.

Wow, that’s a great question!! Glad you asked!

Well, only an employee of Fujitsu could be sufficiently knowledgeable about Horizon to be an expert on it but such a person cannot be considered independent so what do you do?

@@petehiggins33 No, you miss the point entirely. An expert witness would be somebody of sufficient programming /systems skills and knowledge to give opinion about the Futjitsu system. For example, a meteorological expert witness can provide evidence on weather matters without being an employee of the UK Met Office.The court and the legal people have totally misrepresented the role of Jenkins.

@@Swaggerlot True but that is not what was required here. The court needed to know what bugs there were in Horizon and whether or not they could be responsible for the losses. A general computer expert could not know this, only someone who was actually involved in the Horizon software could.

@@petehiggins33 Therefore you are talking about the general disclosure requirements of the POL prosecutors and supporting legal people. My observation throughout is that the only people that should be hung out to dry in this debacle are those with legal professional status, including the judges involved. The entire legal system should be investigated.

The director is a lawyer himself. He's actually English. He co-wrote Yes Minister.

Experts make sure they get paid up front! But they still have to be independent regardless of who is paying them. There are a number of judgements where experts have been roundly criticised for being partisan. The usual remedy in such situations is to disregard the expert's testimony.

If you do your job as solicitors properly, you'll have interviewed a half dozen potential experts to pick the one (1) whose views align with your client's case; (2) who has the right expertise (no good getting an expert on coding practices who has only coded in Python and C rather than C# if your case hinges on C# code); and (3) who articulates his knowledge and opinions well.

Yup. hence the text underneath. But I like to keep it real! And I'm a one take sort of chap.

The rule is that anything that goes into the trial bundle without objection is deemed to be accepted as authentic. So if for example you wanted to challenge the veracity of an exhibit then you would have to make that clear. But generally people can put in what they want. Although it should be clear just from the statements etc why something is going in.

@@artmedialaw thank you I just found it weird they were asking me why I wanted it in and what evidence it lrovided

Provided

My approach to vids, and life in general, is, no preparation, one take. If you ever do see any edits that's just because the camera has a habit of turning itself off. I've decided that's the channel brand, and not just me being lazy.

@@artmedialaw It works very well. Keep up the good work Alan!