Psychiatric expert witness in Scottish family actions
A psychiatric report in a family action is concerned with the welfare of the child, and it addresses that welfare through the lens of a parent's or carer's mental health rather than through a general character assessment. He is instructed by pursuer and defender agents in section 11 actions, by local authorities and curators ad litem in permanence and adoption proceedings, and occasionally directly by the court.
These instructions require particular care in separating diagnosis from parenting capacity: a psychiatric diagnosis does not, of itself, answer whether a parent can meet a child's needs, and the report must show the reasoning that connects clinical findings to the welfare question actually before the court.
What Dr Qureshi can advise on
- Whether a parent meets diagnostic criteria for a recognised psychiatric disorder, including personality difficulties, and the severity and stability of that disorder.
- The relationship, if any, between the parent's mental health and their capacity to provide safe and consistent care, addressed by reference to specific parenting functions rather than diagnosis alone.
- Prognosis with and without treatment, and the timescale over which meaningful change could realistically be expected, set against the child's own timescale for permanence.
- The effect of alcohol or substance misuse on mental state and on parenting capacity, and the reliability of any reported abstinence.
- Insight, engagement with treatment and services, and the parent's own account of difficulties, compared against records held by other agencies.
- Risk factors relevant to contact arrangements, including supervised or reduced contact, and any psychiatric factors bearing on a parent's presentation during contact.
- Whether reported symptoms are consistent with the parent's account, with collateral records and with observed presentation at interview.
- Where relevant, the mental health of a child or young person insofar as it bears on residence, contact or welfare, addressed within the limits of his competence in adult psychiatry.
Where a question calls for child and adolescent psychiatric opinion, or for psychological testing of parenting capacity, he identifies that clearly and recommends the appropriate discipline rather than extend the opinion beyond adult psychiatric practice.
Typical instructions
- Contact dispute with a parent's depressive illness in issue
- One party asserts that the other parent's depressive illness affects their ability to manage unsupervised contact. The report separates the diagnostic question from the welfare question, and addresses specifically what the disorder does and does not affect in day-to-day care.
- Permanence proceedings with a history of relapsing mental illness
- A local authority seeks an opinion on prognosis and the realistic timescale for change, where a parent has a history of relapsing psychiatric illness and a child requires a permanence decision within a defined welfare timescale.
- Substance misuse alongside a personality difficulty
- An instruction where alcohol misuse and features of personality disorder are both said to affect parenting. The opinion addresses each factor separately, and considers the combined effect on capacity to parent consistently over time.
- Section 11 action with a fixed proof and cross-examination expected
- A residence and contact dispute where a proof date is fixed and the psychiatric evidence is expected to be tested directly. Availability for the diet is confirmed at enquiry stage before the instruction is accepted.
What the report includes
The report records the instructions received, the specific welfare questions the court or curator has asked to be addressed, the documents considered — including any local authority, health visiting, GP and addiction service records — and the account given by the parent at interview, clearly distinguished from other sources of information.
The mental state examination and diagnostic formulation are set out, followed by an opinion section that works from diagnosis to specific parenting functions — for example emotional availability, consistency of routine, response to a child's distress — rather than resting on diagnosis as a proxy for capacity.
Where the evidence permits more than one reasonable view of prognosis or capacity, that range is stated together with the reasons for the view preferred, and the report closes with the required statement of independence and duty to the court.
Related expertise
- Alcohol and substance misuse — Addiction psychiatry opinion on dependency, relapse risk and treatment needs.
- Personality disorders — Opinion on personality disorder, its interaction with alleged injury and its effect on function.
- Anxiety and depression (including adjustment disorders and phobic anxiety) — Assessment of depressive and anxiety disorders arising from accident, assault or workplace events.