Expert evidence

The essential character of expert evidence was that it should be the independent product of the expert uninfluenced by the pressures of litigation and that it should be objective and unbiased evidence on matters within the expert’s evidence (CPR PD 35, paras 2.1 and 2.2). The qualities of independence and lack of bias might be compromised by the expert’s connections with the litigation or the parties or those who might benefit from the litigation. It was always a matter for the court to decide whether any such connections disqualified the expert from giving evidence or whether, as might often be the case, they went, not to the admissibility of the evidence, but to the weight to be attached to it. Such connections might take a number of forms, of which three were the most obvious. First, the expert might have a financial interest in the outcome of the litigation. Only rarely would the court admit the evidence of such an expert. Second,