An Expert and Expectations: A review on Medico-legal opinions in alleged sexual abuse victims

Abstract

Introduction An expert's role is to guide the courts in matters related to a particular speciality. In a case of alleged sexual assault an expert is expected to document the history, examination findings and collect available evidence in order to corroborate accounts of sexual assault for courts of law. However in many instances, the medico-legal evidence has shown its limitations and inconsistencies of expert evidence which are known to result in miscarriage of justice.