Judge rebukes expert witness in injured baby case for series of failings

A leading neuroradiologist who was an expert witness in an injured baby case has been strongly criticised by the judge in the case, who said that Robin Sellar “had not read the relevant documents, not fully read the literature . . . and had misread and misinterpreted the relevant research.”1

Sellar, a professor at Edinburgh University, was an expert witness in a case brought by Hertfordshire County Council against a mother and father over their 7 week old baby’s serious brain injuries. The council brought care proceedings against the parents, based on a report it commissioned from a consultant neuroradiologist named only as Dr N, who said he could not “recall ever having seen such an injury as a result of an episode of domestic impact trauma.”

However, Dr N’s report was based on incomplete information early in the case, and four consultant paediatric neuroradiologists at …