Case No. EWFC-48

[2021] EWCA Civ 1371 which provided guidance to family judges about the proper approach to the demeanour of a witness when evaluating the credibility of that witness’s oral evidence. Giving the court’s reasoning, Jackson LJ said this at paragraph 25:“No judge would consider it proper to reach a conclusion about a witness’s credibility based solely on the way that he or she gives evidence, at least in any normal circumstances. The ordinary process of reasoning will drawn the judge to consider a number of other matters, such as the consistency of the account with known facts, with previous accounts given by the witness, with other evidence, and with the overall probabilities. However, in a case where the facts are not likely to be primarily found in contemporaneous documents the assessment of credibility can quite properly include the impression made on the court by a witness, with due allowance being made for the pressures that may arise from the process of giving evidence. Indeed in family cases, where the question is not only “what happened in the past?” but also “what may happen in the future?”, a witness’s demeanour may offer important information to the court about what sort of person the witness truly is, and consequently whether an account of past events or future intentions is likely to be reliable.” In paragraph 28, Jackson LJ went on to cite with approval paragraph 104 of