Dr Ben Harper’s report was excluded from evidence in a family court case by Mr Justice Hayden when purported quotes from a mother during medical examination were found to be, “created by Dr Harper and attributed to the Mother”
Recently Family Law Week reported on the case of Dr Ben Harper (archive here), who was severely criticised by a High Court judge. The case was also covered by Suesspicious Minds (archive here). Matthew Hopkins News reveals that the ‘good’ doctor has a history.
In F (A Minor), Re [2016] EWHC 2149 Dr Ben Harper was commissioned to write a psychological report on the mother of children who are the subject of care proceedings. He wrote an extensive, 70 page report and justified his findings in part by quoting the mother.
In the report, a number of passages were enclosed In italicised quotation marks making strident comments describing previous experts as, for example, “liars”. The only problem with this is that these quotes were made up. The judge found them to be, “[…] created by Dr Harper and attributed to the Mother […]” and also, “[…] a manipulation of material which is wholly unacceptable and, at very least, falls far below the standard that any Court is entitled to expect of any expert witness”.
That much could be easily found on Family Law Week … but it is not the first time a judge has looked askance at a report of Dr Ben Harper. I did a case law search and found three public reported cases naming Dr Ben Harper. One was non-contentious – he had carried out a capacity assessment and found a mother had capacity. The other case was A and B v Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council [2014] EWFC 47.
