Conclusions
From the above considerations it can be seen that the ways in which clinicians and lawyers typically think about expert opinion on cases of suspected sexual abuse may be seriously misleading. Neither the rhetoric of diagnosis or of testing is appropriate when considering the presence or absence of child sexual abuse, particularly when this leads to an expert opinion in the forensic context. It is crucial that experts and courts clearly discriminate and use appropriately the skills of psychologists to ‘bring evidence into being’, as well as their ability to give an opinion based on evidence. In bringing about this evidence, the psychologist might approach the task in the spirit of an investigator carrying out a single case experiment. This should allow courts to form their own opinion on parts or all of the evidence so that the unnecessary reliance on expert opinion is avoided.
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Supra, n.10.
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Glasgow, D., Bentall, R.P. What do expert witnesses in child sexual abuse think they are doing? — ‘Diagnosis’, and the sexually accurate doll ‘test’ as professional myths. Liverpool Law Rev 11, 43–57 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01079636
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01079636