Peter Harvey posts….,
David Pilgrim’s last two posts concerning the unwillingness of the Editor of The Psychologist, Jon Sutton, to publish an important article about the complex and contested matter of ‘false memory’ is no surprise Some of my first posts on BPSWatch were in response to the debacle that followed the failure of the BPS to produce a revision of the Guidelines on Memory and the Law (2008) (see here, here, here and here in date order).
The reason that I was so outraged then (a feeling that remains to this day) was nothing to do with my own career interests – I have never been an Expert Witness, my practice was in clinical health psychology, not forensic psychology or dealing with abuse – but was solely about what I saw as a massive dereliction of duty on the part of the BPS. The Guidelines were a very important resource, not only for psychologists who had to give evidence in court, but also for the courts themselves. The professional body that represents both academic and applied psychology in the UK should be in a position to provide authoritative guidance in matters that are of importance to society as a whole. Memory is one of the few aspects of human behaviour over which psychologists can claim to have more expertise than most and – to my mind at least – we have a responsibility to ensure that what evidence we have is presented in as clear and straightforward a way as possible. This is doubly important when such data are used to inform legal decision-making. At this interface psychological knowledge impacts directly on peoples’ lives and future.
In addition, where there is contested knowledge-base and the evidence may not be clear-cut and where there is legitimate scientific controversy it is crucial that these are acknowledged. In a court of law particularly, the ability to call on a neutral and authoritative guidance is essential. This does not have to have the status of some sort of revealed truth – it is there to act as a benchmark, a standard against which the court can assess the weight to give to the other evidential information that needs to be considered and balanced to achieve a just verdict.
It is, perhaps, worth reminding ourselves about what the duties of an expert witness actually are (at least in England and Wales). The Crown Prosecution Service is very clear in that it states:
The duty of an expert witness is to help the court to achieve the overriding objective by giving opinion which is objective and unbiased, in relation to matters within their expertise. This is a duty that is owed to the court and overrides any obligation to the party from whom the expert is receiving instructions…[see here]
Note the key point – the duty is to the court not to either the prosecution or the defence. That is a clear and obvious requirement which requires a proper, balanced and neutral assessment of the available evidence to allow the court to make an informed decision. This is particularly important when it comes to contested evidence and there is no obvious ‘right’ answer. It is the duty of any responsible professional body is to acknowledge those areas where there is controversy and provide at least some guidance to those who do not have ‘expert’ knowledge. One of the reasons given for the lack of a revision of the original guidelines was that it was not possible to achieve consensus. Surely that is not a reason to abandon revision but rather to acknowledge this, explain the nature of the contested data and provide some expert guidance as to how such uncertainty might be dealt with in the real-life setting of a court of law?
Despite considerable – and ultimately fruitless correspondence (detail in the previous posts) – the 2008 Guidelines were never revised and re-issued by the BPS. This lack of responsible action led – by default – to an outsourcing to psychologists who were members of the Psychology and Law Sections of the British Academy (see here). The fact that this group of eminent specialists (two academic psychologists, one clinical psychologist, one neuropsychiatrist, one lawyer were the primary authors plus seven additional contributors and 17 reviewers and commentator) did what the BPS singularly failed to do is a remarkable testament to the rank incompetence and lack of integrity on the part of the BPS.
And I, too, had a run-in with Jon Sutton when I attempted – again without success – to get a letter published in The Psychologist about this fiasco. He stated his reasons for rejection as these:
We’ve considered your letter and I’m afraid I don’t think publication would be warranted, given the length and its focus on aspects where you’ve already had a fairly full response. Of course, decisions and actions within the Society can always be questioned, and The Psychologist will often be the place to do that. But I’m also informed by Debra that ‘We have met with the former members of the Task and Finish Group and they are happy with the agreed way forward. We have not received any requests from legal professionals or any professional bodies or regulators of the legal profession for guidance regarding memory based evidence’.
I see you’ve got it ‘out there’ on the blog anyway, so perhaps if the response to that changes the situation we can revisit it.
Plus this addendum:
Apologies Peter, I somehow managed to send that before I was finished… anyway, was just going to add that if and when the planned journal coverage is published, that might be another opportunity to revisit the topic. It’s something we’ve covered quite a lot over the years so I’m sure this won’t be the end of the discussion.
Best,
Jon
My response is published in full here, but the final paragraph, I believe, still stands, some five years on:
I am unconvinced that The Psychologist actually functions, as you suggest, as the place to question the Society and its actions. One reason for starting the blog was that we have heard too many members’ experiences of the BPS and The Psychologist being unresponsive to their concerns and to healthy conflict and controversy. And we will continue to act as forum for questioning the society until it is seen to be acting in the open and transparent manner that it claims to do.
I used the phrase ‘lack of integrity’ earlier deliberately; we could also call it lack of moral fibre, cowardice or, as I have done previously, a dereliction of duty. But we a treading a well-worn path here. When it comes to pinning its colours to the mast, as David Pilgrim points out, the BPS is highly selective in its political choices – the transgender debate being another critically important example. The Society is not in the vanguard of the social warrior movement – and it shouldn’t pretend to be. There are plenty of other organisations and groups whose job it is to lobby and engage in special pleading. Likewise, individual psychologists are, and should be, free to campaign for causes in which they believe. But the role of a learned society, which the BPS purports to be, is different. It has a responsibility to stand above simplistic and sloganizing posturing and be guided by what is (at least for that moment) known and is uncertain or unknown. In this fractured post-modern world where ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’ are seemingly malleable and contingent, there is a need for some organisations to take a more deliberative and dispassionate stance, not with truth-proclaiming grandiose certainty, but with a robust, rational, realistic and reasoned approach to what is – and isn’t – known. It is time that the BPS stopped jumping on bandwagons and causes, stops falling victim to fad and fashion, ensures that its policies are not the product of narrow and exclusive activist groups and starts doing what it is meant to be doing.
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