I agree with Sharon and Anne.

Bond Solon: fantastic training, well worth the money... but standing up in front of the beak giving evidence is not for the feint hearted. It can be a great money spinner, but the barristers do the work day in, day out; experts rarely do. You need to be on your guard at all times and even then you can find yourself in a 'rabbit hole' you're unable to do anything about other than lose all hope of being a credible witness. Court room cases have very little to do with the case and much more to do with discrediting witnesses and swaying the balance. Those scales of justice represent all that is evidence according to the expert...

S :-)

Date: Sat, 7 May 2011 20:55:03 +0100
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [OCC-HEALTH] disclosure of OH records
To: [log in to unmask]

would highly recommend the Bond Solon training - they do a two day course on employement law/giving evidence at ET that was fascinating and very valuable.

To echo the sentiments below - part of the training are court scenarios where you have to be in the witness box, and be ripped apart by the barrister running the training. It was hard - but was very useful to see how a lay person (however good they are at their job) get annihilated by counsel by making a few simple (but well meant) mistakes and by being quite simply NOT an expert witness, this is completely different from being good at your job

Date: Sat, 7 May 2011 20:43:53 +0100
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [OCC-HEALTH] disclosure of OH records
To: [log in to unmask]

If I'm reading this correctly, (sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick), someone working in the OH dept is going to provide an expert witness report on an employee they know.

If that's the case, and they aren't a regular expert witness, the employer's legal team should be given a heads-up, for the "expert" witness's sake if nothing else.

Bond Solon are a group of barristers that provide training for expert witnesses. www.bondsolon.com, I think. They do one-day training for 'report writing' and for 'courtroom skills'. Attending either or both of these should, quite rightly, instill the fear of God into anyone who is unfamiliar with writing expert wintness reports and with giving expert evidence in court.

Anyone who considers themselves an "expert witness" who has little to no experience in the field will be torn to pieces in cross examination and may be a tad traumatised as a result of the experience.

S :-)

Date: Sat, 7 May 2011 08:22:05 -0400
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [OCC-HEALTH] disclosure of OH records
To: [log in to unmask]

Hello all,

may I draw on list experience and ask for opinion on response to a request recieved for disclosure of OH records from Crown Prosecution service?

These records, highly sensitive, are likely to provide corroborating evidence of a personal matter not related to employment. A report will be requested from the OH "expert" involved and there is a possibility this person could be called as an expert witness. OH service and the individual are both employees of the aforementioned employer. The individual has given consent to release the OH records to the CPS.

Would the individuals employer (legal team) need to be advised of this situation and what information regarding the case may be shared with them to maintain individuals confidence?

thanks

Suzanne

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