What's wrong with current practices of hair strand testing? | BASW England Children and Families Lunchtime Session

to 1:30pm
About this event

Sarah Branson, barrister at Coram Chambers (London), and Paul Hunter, Technical Director of Forensic Testing Services (FTS – Yorkshire), will speak about the use of hair strand testing for drug and alcohol in the family courts, including how the current widespread practice of using cut-off levels is misleading, biased against people with darker hair colour, and can cause miscarriages of justice.

They will then make a series of recommendations on how industry and court practice should change and highlight the role social workers can play.

Useful background reading ahead of the presentation can be found in these articles in The Guardian, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Family Law Coram Chambers:

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/nov/09/uk-children-taken-away-from…

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2024-11-09/parents-losing…

https://www.coramchambers.co.uk/resources/hair-strand-testing-resources/

Paul Hunter is Technical Director of FTS. He is an accomplished expert witness in the field of drug and alcohol testing, with over 20 years’ experience developing and running specialist substance-misuse analytical laboratories. He’s made over 100 Court appearances as an Expert Witness in Care Proceedings and produced over 3,000 Expert reports for child care cases (family and criminal proceedings). Paul is author of several publication on best practice for investigations and testing in care proceedings and a Member - Society of Hair Testing (SOHT) and The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists.

Sarah Branson is a barrister at Coram Chambers with a thriving practice in public and private law, specialising in acting for children, parents and local authorities in the most complex public law proceedings. She won the Family Law Awards Junior Barrister of the Year 2018 on her first nomination. She is ranked as a leading junior in both the UK Bar 2023, 2024 and 2025 editions of The Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners. Sarah is also a qualified mediator. FTS has invited her along to speak to the relevant law and application of HST within court and in care proceedings and give some pointers to social workers on their role in this and how to ensure safeguarding.

Together, Paul and Sarah have written two articles in Family Law and appeared on a podcast talking about hair strand testing.