Unfitness to Plead Consultation Responses - Law Commission ...

There was some surprise expressed that the test might consist of essentially a
comprehension exercise rather than psychometric or other testing. There was concern
expressed by one psychiatrist that defendants would be ‘coached’ in the tests by lawyers as
he believed occurred in the USA.
Some members of the group wanted strong reassurances about who might complete any
defined psychiatric test. They felt that in these cash-strapped times in reality a situation might
be created where there was pressure for non-psychiatry and non-psychology staff to
complete these assessments. The appeared to arise from their experience of the quality of
assessments and advice from court diversion schemes where there is no psychiatry or
psychology input.
Another objection to perceived proposal to use Dr Blackwood’s defined psychiatric test was
that it appeared to be in a very early stage of development. The group expected that such an
important piece of technology as this should be subject to rigorous study and experimenting
before it was advocated and some present queried whether this reflected a difference
between medical and legal culture. There was some feeling that the Law Commission should
not have pinned its colours as strongly as it appeared to have done to a putative technology
which appeared to be embryonic and for which there was no scientific data in the public
domain. Relatedly, there was a view expressed that this type of development should be
independent of legal consultations and should have been completed well before being
incorporated into proposals in this way.
More positively in regard of a defined psychiatric test, the group felt it offered a good
opportunity for a more rigorous, scientific study of this approach than had previously
undertaken.