2.4 Expertise

The next hurdle to admissibility is whether the individual witness is in fact an expert in the relevant area. If the witness possesses sufficient expertise, their evidence will be admissible even if the witness is not a terribly good expert. Once the hurdle of admissibility is overcome, it is for the court to attach such weight to the evidence as they see fit. In R (Doughty) v Ely Magistrates’ Court,^{Footnote 9} the justices had wrongly excluded the evidence of an expert in speed detection because of his relative lack of experience. The appeal court pointed out:

In considering whether an individual is an expert, it is the fact of whether they have the expertise that is important, not their formal qualifications. The leading example of this is the case of R v Silverlock,^{Footnote 11} where a solicitor who had acquired expertise in handwriting recognition as an amateur for ten years was recognised as an expert, even in the absence of formal qualifications.

Figure 6 Handwriting

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A photograph showing a hand holding a blue fountain pen hovering over a piece of white paper resting on a wooden table. The white paper has the manuscript words ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ written in blue ink.

Figure 6 Handwriting