Expert Witness Services

Expert... witnesses are a crucial resource, without them we (the judges) could not do our job

Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, former President of the Family Division.

In both civil and criminal cases, the opinions of the witnesses are not, in general, admissible. Witnesses are normally confined to stating the facts as they saw them, or claim to have seen them. It is then the job of the judge or jury to decide what the facts were. This often involves deciding between two or more conflicting versions. In fulfilling that role their possession or lack of understanding of the optics market is of no importance. It is their view of the witnesses, and so of the facts as they find them to have been, which matters.

However, there are many issues which the judge or jury are required to determine in our courts which are so far removed from their experience that the opinion of experts is essential if they are to arrive at a right and just decision. The court will always be judge of the facts, but the decision as to what are the proper inferences to be drawn from those facts, whether it be guilt of a crime or liability for a civil wrong, may require investigation of highly complex issues which only an expert trained in them can elucidate and explain.

In our legal system, expert witnesses have been invited and allowed to give opinion evidence, as an exception to the normal exclusionary rule. This exception is of course a privilege which carries with it a heavy burden of responsibility. The Civil Procedure rules, now matched to a significant degree by the new Criminal Procedure Rules are designed (in the case of the Civil Rules with the added force of a detailed Practice Direction) to require and enforce a very high degree of probity and independence on the part of expert witness.

Patrick Myers is an acknowledged expert in the UK optics market. He holds a degree from Brunel University, London. During his fourth year of the course at Brunel, he specialised in Eye Fatigue and Central Nervous System Fatigue and developed a machine to measure Eye / CNS fatigue.

His career began in 1974 were he worked with a range of products with military applications. In 1983, he joined the ERC Group, first as a consultant within their Defence Division and later as its General Manager.

Patrick formed Myers La Roche in January 1985 as a general marketing consultancy. Within 12 months, he had begun to concentrate on working with lawyers and optometrists. Between 1986 and 1988 the firm increasingly specialised in consultancy assignments within the optical market and by 1989, the firm was exclusively working in this field. In 1992, Myers La Roche became the Marketing Partner of the Association of Optometrists and in 1997 it was appointed as the AOP's Practice Sales partner. Myers La Roche is the only company to contract with the AOP in these fields and is an important strategic partner to the AOP.

Since 1985, Patrick has personally completed more than 400 marketing assignments for opticians' practices. More generally, the company has advised thousands of opticians and optometrists in respect of different issues connected with marketing and management.

In 1996, Patrick formed the Optic 2000 Club, which provides market intelligence to its members. The Optic2000 database typically contains, at any one time, up-to-date financial and non-financial information from between 800 and 1,100 opticians' outlets in Britain and Northern Ireland. .

Patrick has had various articles on marketing and managing opticians' practices published. Market intelligence, which Myers La Roche and Patrick collect, is used by organisations such as the Association of Optometrists, the Association of British Dispensing Opticians, Optometry Today (Magazine), The Optician (Magazine) Primary Care Trusts and Government Departments.

Patrick regularly speaks on marketing and management issues at seminars and lectures organised by the AOP, AOI, the Institute of Optometry and ABDO. Patrick is a visiting lecturer on practice management issues at the main teaching universities. Patrick also runs marketing and management workshops / seminars for commercial organisations within the optical market.

Patrick has produced reports for court purposes and for General Optical Council hearings conducted under guidelines set out in the Opticians Act 1989. Myers La Roche can assist in sorting out legal issues in the optical market due to the wide knowledge of the market.

The cost of the Expert Witness service is £1300 + VAT per day plus any disbursements.

This service is available in England, Wales and Northern Ireland only.