The Outcome of Psychiatric Recommendations to Courts

Abstract

The case notes, court reports and outcomes of 699 consecutive out-patient referrals to a forensic service for court reports, related to criminal offences, were examined. The relationship between rejection of psychiatric recommendations to the court and a number of different variables was examined. Age, sex and ethnicity were found to be unrelated to rejection rates. Referrals from defence solicitors, certain offences and certain diagnoses were found to be over-represented among those cases in which such recommendations were rejected.