Dr Agatha Benyera-Mararike
Dr Benyera-Mararike has completed over 355 Medicolegal Reports and over 100 Professional expert reports. To date, she has never faced criticism, and the court has consistently accepted her opinions.
Dr. Benyera-Mararike is a senior NMC-registered midwifery lecturer and practitioner, Higher Education Academy Fellow, as well as an HCPC/BPS-registered Chartered Counselling Psychologist and Supervisor, with a professional background in clinical practice, education, counselling psychology, psychotherapy, and supervision. She has over 28 years of experience as a midwife, working in consultant-led NHS and private hospitals; 19 years as a qualified therapist and 14 years as a clinical supervisor. Her counselling and psychotherapy experience spans across various clinical populations and counselling settings, including inpatient acute mental health, chronic disease management, women’s and children’s health, learning disabilities, crisis issues, drug and alcohol work, HMP prison work, HIV and hospice-based bereavement/loss counselling, long-term conditions, HIV mental health, sexual health, LGBTQ+, psychosexual counselling, antenatal screening, and perinatal mental health, as well as psychiatric intensive care units. She is active in community development projects. She currently works in acute mental health and as a Senior Lecturer for a Doctorate in Counselling Psychology Programme.
She also has extensive knowledge and experience in preparing reports within the Criminal Justice System, Civil Procedure, and Family Courts, where she has developed experience as an expert witness. Dr Benyera-Mararike continues to prepare medico-legal reports (MLR) for family, criminal, and civil cases – including accident injury claims, immigration matters, midwifery clinical negligence and birth trauma, and proceedings in the Court of Appeal relating to detainees and victims of torture, as well as complex presentations of traumatic stress. She is a member of the BPS Expert Witness Advisory group.
355 Medico-legal Expert Witness Reports covering:
- Medico Legal Report writing for immigration cases for asylum seekers, victims of rape, trauma, torture, and female genital mutilation in detention centres and the community and Forensic
- Cases- Impact of trauma on the psychological well-being of detainees, victims of torture, multiple trauma, trafficking and modern-day slavery
- Assessment of attachment between parents and children
- Impact of domestic violence on adults and children
- Assessment of the impact of a parent’s psychological status on their children and their ability to provide care for them
- Issues relating to abuse and neglect
- Cognitive assessments; Dols; Mental Capacity
- Assessments of children and teenagers
- Assessment of maturity and psychological effect on the Culpability of the offence
- Midwifery clinical negligence (10 cases)
- Assessment of psychological impact of complex accident injury and road traffic collision, and work-related injuries; Treatment and prognosis or recovery.
Profession: Psychologist
Courts or Tribunals: Clinical Negligence, Criminal and Offending, Family Court, Immigration and Asylum, Personal Injury
Age groups: Adolescent, Adult, Child
Psychological Specialisms: Adult Mental Health Problems, Behavioural Difficulties, Child Mental Health, Domestic Abuse, Forensic, Mental Capacity, Parent-Child Attachment, Parenting Problems, Physical Disabilty, School Problems, Sexual Offending, Substance Misuse, Trauma and PTSD, Youth Offending
Therapies offered: CBT, Counselling, EMDR, Psychodynamic, Psychological Supervision, Systemic
