Neurodivergence Webinar Series: Part 3 - Witness Handling

This session will explain how there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach and give attendees the tools to help identify barriers to participation at the earliest stage, formulate reasonable adjustments and manage courts’, clients’ and opponents responses to requests for accommodations. It will also cover questioning techniques which facilitate and hamper best evidence and the role of intermediaries.

Speaker Panel

Amanda Weston KC, Garden Court Chambers
Amanda is a leading public and administrative law silk. She co-authors Judicial Review: A Practical Guide (Lexis Nexis) and is a member of the ‘A’ Panel of preferred Counsel who act for the Equality & Human Rights Commission. Amanda has acted in hundreds of asylum and human rights appeals including in high-profile and sensitive cases and those involving extradition. Her cases include gender and sexuality cases, complex political and religious cases and appeals for children and vulnerable adults. 

Amanda also acts in cases in the Family Division, Administrative Court and appeal courts where the rights of children and young people are in play. Her particular areas of ‘crossover’ expertise involve safeguarding, local authority corporate parenting duties, education and disability, deprivation of liberty, immigration and citizenship matters and sensitive cross-cultural areas including FGM, 'radicalisation', trafficking and forced marriage. She operates a 'trauma informed' practice, using her expertise in mental capacity law and safeguarding practice to inform her approach to the representation of vulnerable adults and their litigation friends in a wide range of cases

Dexter Dias KC, Garden Court Chambers
Dexter Dias KC is an award-winning barrister who has been instructed in some of the biggest cases of recent years involving human rights, murder, crimes against humanity, terrorism, war crimes and genocide. He has also played a pivotal role in public inquiries and inquests that are watersheds in the developing law of the land.

Dexter has been instrumental in changing the law to better protect young women and girls at risk of FGM and works internationally on human rights with victims and survivors of abuse of institutional power and harmful social practices. He is Chair of the Global Media Campaign to End FGM (a development of The Guardian newspaper's project). He was finalist in Liberty & Justice's Human Rights Lawyer of the Year, nominated for "his outstanding commitment to the rule of law and justice for all; for his deep devotion to ensure that the voices of the weakest in society are heard. He is also a Crown Court Recorder authorised to sit at the Old Bailey and on Serious Sexual Offences, and is Visiting Researcher at Cambridge University and recently Harvard.

Other speakers TBC...

Neurodiversity in the Justice System

Our webinar series 'Neurodiversity in the Justice System', will cover a range of practice areas, recounting the experiences and examining the challenges faced by neurodivergent people involved in the justice system in England and Wales, whether as witnesses, defendants, lawyers or otherwise. These webinars will bring together experts from legal practice, academia, policy and other professionals to consider the flaws in the current system, identify instances of best practice and propound changes that could be made to improve access to justice, equality and diversity in the courts. Our previous and upcoming webinars in the series are available here.