Abstract
Because of its translation to the courtroom the diagnosis of abusive head trauma (AHT) has been subjected to a high level of scrutiny and has been associated with controversy in legal circles and the public media. The narrative that AHT is an unreliable medical diagnosis with a poor evidence base underpinning it (‘junk science’) that has resulted in children being wrongfully removed and parents wrongfully convicted is advanced by a small group of alternative theorists. There is evidence that the rate of successful appeal against criminal convictions in relation to AHT in the USA is rising and this can be related in part to the provision of expert defense testimony, some of which is based on methodologically flawed or deliberately misleading academic material.
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