foreign [Music] [Music] ly speaking Witnesses in court may not Give opinions they give evidence of things that they have observed with their own five senses and then the judge or the jury determine what conclusions can be drawn from those facts expert Witnesses however are a little bit different expert Witnesses are usually nowhere near the action which gave rise to the dispute expert Witnesses are involved because they have a special set of skills which enables them to look at a set of facts and to provide opinions within their field of expertise which would not be possible for anyone without their expertise expert Witnesses therefore provide a professional service to the parties and to the court they are usually consulted quite early in the litigation process often before a party has even decided for sure whether they intend to file a claim at all because the experts will help them to decide whether they do in fact have a claim in this case there was a dispute about a charter contract for a boat one side said there was a contract the other side said there was not there was a key document handwritten which seemed to prove there was a contract but the original was not available only carbon copies the plaintiffs consulted with a handwriting expert Mr Davies whose opinion sadly for them was that the carbon copies were not authentic some months later the other side also approached Mr Davies who was one of few experts in this field again he expressed The View that the documents were not authentic but then suddenly he realized he had advised both parties and so he refused to provide the second party any further Evidence but they had heard enough and they subpoenaed him to give evidence the plaintiffs tried to get an injunction to stop him giving that evidence should he be heard Lord Denning said there is no property in an expert witness as to the facts he has observed and his own independent opinion on them there being no such property in a witness it is the duty of a witness to come to court and give his evidence so far as he is directed by the judge to do so this case confirms that the duty of an expert witness is to assist the court itself and not the party which has hired the witness [Music] thank you