About the Centre for Forensic Neuroscience
The Centre for Forensic Neuroscience was founded to meet the ever increasing demand from both defence lawyers and prosecutors for neuroscientific evidence. With the advent of ever more powerful brain scanning technology the use imaging, and other neuropsychological, evidence in Court has become a distinct reality. Thus jurors may now be asked to consider abnormal brain functioning with respect to criminal responsibility. Therefore brain anomalies are becoming a vital and primary area of evidence for legal mitigation. Furthermore, neuroscience is also having an impact upon investigation practices, with the introduction of artificial intelligence-based and brainwave profiling detection of deception technologies.
CFN's founder is Dr Keith Ashcroft and is a specialist in investigative psychology. He routinely provides psychological reports in both civil and criminal cases and gives evidence in Court. He has been instructed over the past 9 years by the Crown and Appeal Courts, Sheriff Courts and the High Court of Justiciary throughout Scotland; and by the Crown Prosecution Service and criminal defence lawyers in England and Wales.
Dr Ashcroft has experience in working with the Police and Prison service, and accepts instructions in criminal cases for both adolescents and adults, with specialist knowledge of sexual crimes, and crimes of violence. He has been consulted on matters relating to threat assessment, violence risk assessment, violence prevention, and corporate security issues for the past decade. He will also consider instructions for civil cases (either as a single or joint expert). He can be consulted on a variety of interview technologies to determine malingering and deception, which include: Adaptive Profiling Systems, Polygraph - Lie Detection and Deviant Sexual Interest examinations (PPG), in criminal, clinical and employment cases.Dr Ashcroft also specializes in investigative forensic hypnosis which can be used to assist in the recovery of memories, under the adoption of very strict professional guidelines.
Dr Ashcroft is listed in the 'Directory of Expert Witness' which is maintained by the British Psychological Society, the representative and regulatory body for psychologists in the UK. He is also a full member of the British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience; the Neuroethics Society; The International Academy for Investigative Psychology; the National Association for the Treatment of Abusers; the British Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis, the Society for Psychophysiological Research and the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation.