Prof. Christopher Butler

Professor Christopher R Butler is a Consultant Neurologist and one of the UK's foremost expert witnesses in cognitive neurology, providing medico-legal reporting services across cognitive disorders, memory impairment, amnesia, epilepsy, dementia, and acquired brain injury.

Prof Butler has been providing expert witness services since 2012 and has authored over 400 medico-legal reports, maintaining a balanced prosecution-to-defence ratio of approximately 50:50. He holds Bond Solon certificates in Medico-Legal Reporting, reflecting his commitment to excellence and procedural rigour within the courts of England and Wales.

He accepts instructions in the following areas:

• Cognitive impairment & neuropsychological assessment — memory loss, amnesia, and accelerated long-term forgetting
• Acquired brain injury — causation, prognosis, capacity, and functional impact
• Epilepsy — including epilepsy-related cognitive and memory disturbances
• Dementia — Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal, vascular, and atypical dementias
• General neurology — other neurological conditions considered on merit

Holding dual appointments as an Associate Professor in the Department of Brain Sciences and the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, and as an Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Professor Butler previously served as Associate Professor and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at the University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He trained in medicine at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, completed specialist neurology training in Edinburgh and Oxford, and undertook postdoctoral research at the Memory and Ageing Centre at the University of California, San Francisco,  a world-leading centre in cognitive neuroscience.

He established and led the Oxford Cognitive Disorders Clinic and is now based at the Imperial Memory Service in London. Both are internationally recognised multidisciplinary services treating patients with cognitive impairment arising from dementia, epilepsy, head injury, and functional neurological illness.This rare combination of elite academic and frontline NHS clinical experience gives him exceptional authority in complex medico-legal cases.

With over 200 peer-reviewed publications and more than £15 million in research funding from the MRC, NIHR, Alzheimer's Association, and Gates Foundation, Professor Butler's scientific expertise is directly relevant to the causation and quantification of cognitive impairment. 

Prof Butler trained in medicine at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, with specialist neurology training in Edinburgh and Oxford. He completed a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at the Memory and Aging Center, University of California, San Francisco, before appointments at the University of Oxford and subsequently Imperial College London.

Bond Solon Certificate in Medico-Legal Reporting

Past President of the British Neuropsychiatry Association (BNPA) (2016–2019) and Treasurer of the Cognitive Neurology Special Interest Group of the Association of British Neurologists. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCPE), a registered GMC practitioner, and a member of the Medical Defence Union. He holds visiting professorships internationally and advises the Governments of Chile and Brazil on national dementia strategy.