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Award for pioneering expert witness
RCPsych Fellow Dr Peter Wood was honoured for his pioneering work in expert psychiatric witness practice last month at the 25th Grange Annual Conference, held at Hazlewood Castle, Yorkshire.
The event was organised by ETN, the Mental Health Education and Training Network.
The Grange Annual Conference is recognised as the leading conference and training forum for psychiatrists engaged in expert witness practice, bringing together clinicians, lawyers and members of the judiciary to discuss how psychiatrists can best deploy their knowledge and experience to assist the execution of justice.
The conference began with judicial keynote presentations. First, The Rt Hon Dame Siobhan Keegan, DBE, Lady Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, spoke on 'Capacity in legal proceedings: autonomy, participation and protection'. The Rt Hon Sir Colin Birss, formerly Chancellor of the High Court and now the incoming Master of the Rolls, then introduced the day's theme, 'Artificial intelligence and the expert'.
Writing after the Conference, Dame Siobhan said:
“The relatively intimate character of the Conference seems to me to be one of its particular strengths. It creates the conditions for a genuine exchange of ideas between clinicians, lawyers and judges, and for the candid and thoughtful discussion of difficult issues which larger conferences cannot always achieve.”
At this landmark conference the opportunity was taken to honour Dr Peter Wood who opened the Grange Consulting Rooms at Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, in 1997, and brought together psychiatrists, psychologists and an occupational health physician, all seeking to assist the courts with expert evidence. The Grange's programme of medico-legally focused CPD and peer support eventually resulted in the First Grange Annual Conference at The George Hotel, Stamford, in 2001.
A number of today's expert psychiatric witnesses received what was then innovative expert witness training from Dr Wood and his West Yorkshire colleagues when they were junior doctors. Such training for specialty registrars is now available throughout the country as is evident from the case of Secretary of State for the Home Department v Rahmani[2024] UKAITUR UI2023004521.
First-tier Tribunal Judge C H O'Rourke had a report from Dr Holly Wolton, describing her as 'an Advanced Registrar in Forensic Psychiatry'. He said that 'Dr Wolton's report is thorough and dispassionate and I give it due weight'. When the Secretary of State appealed the Tribunal's decision, Upper Tribunal Judge R J Owens observed that the Secretary of State did not challenge Dr Wolton's expert evidence, nor the weight that the judge attributed to her report.
As that case illustrates, the duty of the expert is to assist the court. It is testimony to Dr Wood's discharge of that duty that he has assisted the courts in a number of landmark cases: Tandy and Inseal on 'alcoholism and diminished responsibility', Dryden on 'provocation', Walker and Northumberland County Council 'employment stress', Taylorson and Shieldness Products 'nervous shock', Catholic Care and Young 'historical sexual abuse' and Orange and the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, 'suicide in custody' to name but a few.
Conference Organiser, Professor Keith Rix, submitted to Dame Siobhan that these are only some of the achievements of Dr Peter Wood and for which the Grange Annual Conference 25 Year Tie, which she presented to him, was but a small token of recognition.
This article was included in our October 2026 eNewsletter.