Legal reports & expert witness services

Jeremy Woodcock is an accredited expert witness for the General Dental Council and, despite being busy in full-time general practice, he will assist the Council in three or four cases a year on average.

An expert witness will produce a written report and will stand to give evidence to the Council in disciplinary cases. This report will form the basis of the formal charges and will aid the Council members (especially the lay members) to reach an opinion about the allegations and charges. The expert is required to be objective and unbiased and in the vast majority of cases this means that only one expert is called before the Council. In some cases the defendant will call their own expert witness and then each expert will be required to defend their own opinions, where they differ.

A single disciplinary case can involve more than a hundred hours of preparation for the report and may take up to two years to reach the Council, so it is a formidable undertaking. An expert witness needs to be familiar with the standards and procedures of clinical practice and must always be up-to-date in the fields of their expertise. Cross examination in Court is one sure way of finding out any weaknesses!

As an expert,  Jeremy is able to write reports and give evidence for cases of dental injury, insurance claims, negligence and other dental-legal matters.