Criminal Law
CFN is often instructed to provide expert testimony for the Criminal Justice System, and generally prepares reports for the following stages of the Court procedures: Pre-Trial, The Trial, Pre-sentencing and Prison Law Matters.
CFN Limited receives instructions on the following legal issues:
Fitness to plead/stand trial – Does the defendant have an adequate understanding of the legal proceedings? Employing the very latest instruments, such as the Evaluation of Competency to Stand Trial - Revised, which represents a major advance in the assessment of competency.
Diminished responsibility/insanity defence – What is the relationship between the defendant’s mental condition at the material time and the defendant’s responsibility for the crime with which he or she is charged? CFN uses The Rogers Criminal Responsibility Assessment Scales (R-CRAS), which provides a systematic and reliable guide for evaluating defendants; covering areas such as - Patient Reliability, Organicity, Psychopathology, Cognitive Control, and Behavioural Control at the material time.
Mitigation for sentencing – factors such as alcoholism, drug dependency, lack of knowledge or criminal intent or mens rea, mental capacity. Recommendations about disposal (including treatment)
Impact of personality disorders on crime, e.g. a psychopathic, paranoid, borderline diagnoses.
Violence risk assessment, inc. sexual, domestic and general violence.
Forensic Neuropsychological Status – When learning disability is at issue, neuropsychological expertise is crucial in establishing objective information about intelligence and adaptive functioning. Likewise, in cases involving head injury or disease, neuropsychological testing may determine the true extent of a person's impairment. In employment fitness investigations, or disputes involving capacity or the need for a guardian, neuropsychological expertise may be especially influential in resolving a individual’s abilities to perform daily functions, potential for recovery and special needs and disabilities.
Criminal profiling – responding to requests by investigative agencies involved in rape, homicide, kidnapping or acts of terrorism.
Forensic aspects of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome - Prenatal alcohol exposure can seriously harm the foetus, resulting in a wide range of physical and central nervous system abnormalities. Studies have found that significant numbers of adolescents and adults have repeatedly displayed inappropriate sexual behaviour. While these persons are likely to present themselves before Court, or other forensic settings, it is unlikely that they would be diagnosed with neurologically impairment because the sequelae of prenatal alcohol exposure are seldom accurately identified by clinicians. Profiling of
Fire setters – What are the characteristics of people who set fires? The identification of specific typologies of motives of fire setters to estimate risk of recidivism and degree of dangerousness.
Disputed confessions – CFN’s staff are called upon provide expert testimony when defendants challenge the voluntariness of the defendant’s confession under police interrogation or the accuracy of their confession. Thus Suggestibility – measuring individual differences in interrogative suggestibility is often examined. Reliability of adult/child witness statements – criteria-based content analysis an estimation of the distinction between true and false statements can be analysed.
Preparation of reports for Judicial Reviews, Adjudication Hearings, Categorisation of Prisoners, and in particular Cat A's., Parole evaluations, and Lifer Panels, and matters concerning Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection.