Dr. Jacques Claassen

Dr Jacques Claassen is an experienced, senior expert witness and report writer familiar with the broader Australian context. He is a registered medical specialist with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and a fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP). He attained his fellowship in New Zealand where he also completed his Advanced Training in the sub-speciality of Forensic Psychiatry.

Dr. Claassen has worked as consultant psychiatrist in a range of bed- and community based public mental health services in Victoria and Western Australia for more than a decade. Since 2015 he has held a number of senior medical leadership appointments at the level of Clinical Director in regional Victoria, Perth and Melbourne. Dr. Claassen is passionate about consumer-centred mental health assessment and treatment, inter-disciplinary platforms of care delivery, shared decision making, inclusion and representation of the Lived and Living Experience perspective, provision of safe workspaces, reduction of restrictive mental health practices, and robust clinical governance to ensure optimal care delivery and systems refinement.

Clinically speaking, Dr. Claassen is comfortable in adult general and forensic psychiatric contexts, noting his particular interest in youth forensic mental health and psychotic spectrum conditions for a broad range of people across the developmental spectrum, including young people and adults of all gender diverse and cultural backgrounds.

As a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Dr Claassen provides psychiatric reports relating to a variety of matters, including (but not limited to) the presence of mental illness, fitness to stand trial, the availability of a mental impairment defence, violence risk assessment, dispositional matters, child protection issues and Family Court matters. He provides expert testimony in the Children’s Court of NSW and Melbourne, Supreme Court, Family Court and Federal Circuit Court jurisdictions in both criminal and civil settings. He has provided expert opinion reports and testimony in New Zealand and Australia.