• Legal

    I regularly undertake assessments of adults for the purposes of expert witness testimony. This includes:

    • Mental health and behavioural assessment
    • Cognitive assessment
    • Mental Capacity Act assessment
    • Co-working with other expert witnesses for the purpose of deaf governance
    • Advice to courts

    • Crucial issues in Deafness and the CJS

    Literacy – The average reading age of a deaf person is less than 9 years (Mayberry, 2002)
    Lip reading – The best a lip reader can understand is 50% of a conversation. Hearing people are better lip readers than deaf people
    Language deprivation – Some deaf people who appear to be fluent signers may in fact have language deprivation
    Mental health – There is a higher prevalence of mental health problems in the deaf population
    Challenging behaviour – There is a higher prevalence of challenging behaviour in the deaf population
    Vulnerability – Deaf people are more likely to be abused, oppressed and bullied than hearing people
    Deaf people may have additional disabilities associated with their cause of deafness


    Clinicians with no experience of working with deaf people may provide inaccurate assessments