Expert Witness Perjury (Lying In Report Signed By Declaration Of Truth)

[JIBBAJABBA]

If an expert witness wrote in his report several parts he claims he said and several parts he claims the assessed person said, but can be proved 100% were fabricated would this amount to perjury, and would his evidence be admissible in court. this is in a criminal court.

Section 5 of the perjury act 1911 states

False statutory declarations and other false statements without oath.

If any person knowingly and wilfully makes (otherwise than on oath) a statement false in a material particular, and the statement is made—
(a)in a statutory declaration; or
(b)in an abstract, account, balance sheet, book, certificate, declaration, entry, estimate, inventory, notice, report, return, or other document which he is authorised or required to make, attest, or verify, by any public general Act of Parliament for the time being in force; or
(c)in any oral declaration or oral answer which he is required to make by, under, or in pursuance of any public general Act of Parliament for the time being in force,he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and shall be liable on conviction thereof on indictment to imprisonment, . . . F13, for any term not exceeding two years, or to a fine or to both such imprisonment and fine.

[Jethro77]

Perjury is the willful giving of false evidence under oath or affirmation in judicial proceedings. An oath or affirmation binds the witness, to tell the truth. If he or she gives evidence in a criminal trial or in civil proceedings which they know to be false and which was material and relevant to the issues in that trial or civil proceedings, he or she is guilty of perjury.
As the remarks in question are contained in a report no question of perjury arises at this stage.
If the remarks were to be given from the witness box under oath or affirmation the position may be different but of course to secure a conviction on a charge of perjury it is not enough for the prosecution to show that a witness has lied in court, they also have to prove the evidence they gave was ‘material’ and ‘relevant’.

[Peter Pedant]

did a longish answer yesterday and it was gobbled up by the predatory ad - you have won a wotsit - from which there is no return

if Jethro is a lawyer then stop reading this now !
long post - stop reading this now if you are short oftime

the Jeffrey archer case R v Archer
I thought established that an affidavit not used in court could be a basis for perjury ( count 5 - Archer did other things too)

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/public_justice_offences_incorporating_the_charging_standard/

and the Archer appeal ( turned down) is here
R v Archer [2003] 1 Cr.App.R.(S.) 86
which you can get on BAILII

BUT
there are other charges that may fit
see also the CPS

perverting the course of justice
contempt ofcourt

and there is also complaint to the GMC - which is guaranteed to screw up his life for at least two years if he is a doctor true or not
he doesnt even have to be intentionally wrong for that one - being wrong is good enough

there is a speech from a law lord somewhere
I have lost the ref
which is a good laugh

BUT - again

the lost ref of the law lord
makes a big difference between
before the verdict / finding and after when the whole thing has to be done again on appeal

before the verdict finding - he says that judges should just treat it as a contested document ( unless lying has been shown and not concluded -that is you cannot say - "and so the only conclusion is he was lying" but "he was lying because he did this and said that ....")

but that after the 'wrong' verdict has been given
then it is a whole different ball game

These are called "witness crimes" and I was on a jury where there was another witness crime alleged subornation -shouts of 'you better let him off you know!" as we went into court and the girls went all girlie - and the men determined to bring in two-by-fours the next day - [unrecorded not surprisingly not reported in the papers]

so it is clear
tht you are in the 'before' category and should concentrate on refuting the wrong bits when the day comes ( or before if there is a mechanism )

thank you for raising the point
it comes up quite a lot and
I wouldnt have bothered to find and read the archer case ....

[Peter Pedant]

had fun looking at judicial comment on the archer case
here is the law lord making an extra-curial speech
( he doesnt have his funny hat on and it doesnt count as law)
https://www.supremecourt.uk/docs/speech-121026.pdf

glad I found it
and the site for lords' speeches when they run out of cases and have access to a spare type writer