My role is to give my expert neutral opinion on the evidence I have examined

My role is to give my expert, neutral opinion on the evidence I have examined.
All too often, the barrister appears to see it as his job to make sure that I do not give my evidence to the court. He (and it’s usually he) thinks that he must bully me into saying what I do not mean and make sure that my opinion is represented to the jury in as misleading a way as possible. If he chooses to vilify me, accuse me of tampering with the evidence, trivialise my qualifications, question my honesty, he will happily do so. Quite often, the judge will let him proceed.One of the favourite ways of discrediting witnesses is to form questions in such a way that they are forced to answer “yes” or “no” where such an answer is impossible.

If the witness refuses this ambush, he is made to look evasive and unreliable. If the barrister does this “well,” his colleagues will congratulate him on doing a good job Never mind what is at stake, which is justice and truth. It is all dealt with as if it were nothing but a chaps’ game.None of this matters much for the expert witness, who becomes accustomed to dealing with the infantile, self-regarding mind games of some barristers. It is much more serious for ordinary witnesses, including children, who know they have been misrepresented over something that is very important to them or someone else. It is time barristers put their egos away and started to do their job with a little more honesty and respect for other human beings.ELIZABETH J S McCLELLANDEdinburghThe writer is a forensic phonetician. Sir: Maureen Freely’s article (“All shook up in a midwife crisis”,14 May) correctly identifies the power imbalance between medicine and midwifery as potentially compromising the health of mothers and babies.

In the recent furore over the Caroline Flint case, however, the emphasis has been misplaced; rather than the safety of mothers and babies being jeopardised by overzealous midwives failing to hand over care early enough, the far more common risk faced by women in maternity hospitals is that of being damaged through inappropriate medical intervention.
Freely remarks that “there is nothing better than a birth managed by a good, responsive midwife”. The low-tech midwifery approach to maternity care has been demonstrated to consistently result in the best outcomes for mothers and babies.The midwives I teach and work with are highly trained, skilled and compassionate people who make great sacrifices in order to give women safe and appropriate care. Their pay after practising for several years is rarely more than pounds 16, 000, and often less.My fear is that if the UK Central Council for Nurses, Midwives and Health Visiting continues to put competent, well respected midwives like Caroline Flint in the dock rather than supporting them for doing their best in difficult situations, the current acute shortage of practising midwives will worsen into a mass exodus.SARAH DAVIESMidwifery LecturerUniversity of Salford,Greater Manchester. Sir: I was interested to see that you placed a story on the English regions immediately below one on voting reform (12 May). It comes as no surprise that no sooner has Scottish and Welsh devolution become a visible reality, than their English regional neighbours, too, are looking for “equality”. The pressure will now surely mount for greater devolution to the English regions.

If that were to lead to the wider application of proportional representation, that could have very damaging consequences.
When the Jenkins Commission made its recommendation to abandon the first- past-the-post electoral system in England, the Institute of Directors warned that the business community should be very wary of supporting a system that could lead to minority governments dependant on the support of minority parties: parties which would undoubtedly demand their pound of flesh for that support and circumscribe the ability of the main party of government to deliver its declared policies.The uncertainty and instability brought about by the kind of public haggling that this involves and public suspicion that the Government will readily abandon tough political decisions, are inclined to deter business investment, unsettle financial markets and undermine consumer confidence.If the Government needs now to side-step pressure for undesirable political change in the English regions, the potential to achieve this already exists, by developing effective regional economic strategies through the new Regional Development Agencies.To be effective the RDAs must be business-led: this is the Government’s declared intention. It is essential that central government gives the RDAs sufficient freedom and coherence to succeed and that it genuinely carries through its pledge that they should be business-led.TIM MELVILLE-ROSSDirector GeneralInstitute of DirectorsLondon SW1. Sir: Like Robert Handyside (letter, 17 May) I had the depressing experience of spending a week phoning the number given for the Newport Passport Office, only to find that, when I finally got through to a real person, I was speaking not to the Newport office at all but to a centralised answering service. I was given a different number for the Newport office, and invited to start again. I then discovered another facet to their service which must have contributed to the award of their Charter Mark.