An Ontario psychologist who testified she has conducted more than 100 assessments as an expert in child protection cases — including some in which children were permanently taken from their parents — lied about her credentials and was unqualified to perform the work, a judge has found. Nicole Walton-Allen had “intentionally misrepresented her qualifications” since at least 2009, according to a December ruling by Ontario Court Justice Penny Jones in a case in which the Hamilton-based psychologist gave an expert opinion supporting the Halton children’s aid society’s request that all five children in one family should be placed in its extended care.Walton-Allen, who made the recommendations in a report known as a parenting capacity assessment, is authorized by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to practise in the area of school psychology, but had repeatedly passed herself off as a clinical psychologist to increase her credibility as a mental health professional, Jones found. “I find that (Walton-Allen) does not have the qualifications to complete such a report given the complexities of the issues involved and given her educational and professional background,” Jones wrote after tossing the psychologist’s 280-page report. The fact Walton-Allen’s reports had been accepted as expert testimony in other courts, “is not binding on me,” ruled Jones, a longtime family court judge who normally presides at Toronto’s 311 Jarvis St. courthouse. “I suspect that the same decision I have made would have been made by those other courts if the facts known to me were also known to them.” In a system where losing a child to the state is described by lawyers as the “capital punishment,” the damning findings against Walton-Allen raise the question of whether children were permanently taken away from their parents based partly or entirely on reports prepared by a psychologist foun ...
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