WASTED COSTS

An incompetent expert witness was ordered to pay £89,000 in wasted costs after leaving the claimant no choice but to drop her clinical negligence claim. The case collapsed after Firas Jamil admitted he did not know the correct test to determine breach of duty. The court identified significant failings, including his duties to the court, justifying a wasted costs order against him. There was sympathy for Jamil's personal and psychiatric difficulties, but a public body (the NHS) incurred significant unnecessary costs, the claimant lost her entitlement to have her case tried on its merits and considerable court time was wasted. 30 January