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Does the person conducting the test matter?
- Nov 11, 2026
- Latest Journal
by Lemon Cherry
Lemon Cherry, how they manage to work with both family lawyers, Court of Protection practitioners and HR and health & safety professionals, and employers.
Q: What makes court of protection drug testing different from workplace or general clinical testing?
A: Workplace testing is, in a lot of ways, the simpler environment. There’s a policy. There’s usually an HR process behind it. Donors are employees - so there’s a professional relationship, an established consent framework, and if something goes wrong procedurally, there’s an internal mechanism to deal with it.
Court of Protection and family work is a different matter entirely.
We’re often going into domestic properties. The dynamics are completely different. You might have children present - and that changes everything about how you walk through the door, how you introduce yourself, how the whole interaction feels. You can’t treat that like a factory floor.
Non-compliance is a real scenario. Sometimes a donor simply refuses. That itself becomes evidential - but it has to be handled properly, recorded accurately, and presented without any sense that you went in expecting a particular outcome. That last part matters more than people realise. Advocating for an outcome, even subtly, compromises the independence of the result. And independence is the whole point.
We go in passive and supportive. Consent is essential. Our collection technicians are trained not
just procedurally but with real-world exposure to the kinds of situations family cases produce. There’s a kind of emotional intelligence to this work that doesn’t appear in most operational frameworks, but it’s the thing that makes a collection go smoothly - or not.
Q: How do you stay updated on changes in testing technology and court standards?
A: We only use UKAS-accredited laboratories for confirmation analysis. That’s not a preference - it’s non-negotiable. Accreditation means the laboratory is independently assessed against recognised standards, which means the results we submit carry the weight they need to carry in proceedings.
We keep a close eye on how the courts are interpreting results, and on how testing technology is developing. The landscape around cut-off levels, matrix recommendations, and evidential weight shifts. Staying current is part of the job.
Q: What matrix (hair, nail, oral fluid, urine) do you recommend for different family scenarios, and why?
A: The short answer is: it depends on what the court actually needs to know. Oral fluid, urine, and bloods can all give you a picture of current or very recent use - they’re the right choice when the question is whether someone is impaired or has used a substance recently. There’s a window, though. These matrices are good for days, sometimes weeks, not months.
Hair is different. Hair gives you a historic picture - roughly a centimetre of growth for each month, so
a hair sample can take you back three, six, twelve months depending on length. For cases where the question is habitual or sustained use over time, hair is usually the right matrix. Nails can be used where hair isn’t available or practical, and they carry a similar evidential function.
The matrix selection should be driven by the question the proceedings are trying to answer. It’s not one size fits all, and a good testing provider should be having that conversation with you upfront.
Q: How does your lab prevent false positives from everyday products or medications?
A: Any disclosure a donor makes - medication, supplements, contact with substances - is recorded at the point of collection and submitted with the sample. The laboratory cross-references that information when they’re analysing the result.
The cut-off levels matter here too. We don’t test to zero. That’s deliberate. The cut-offs provided through UKAS accreditation exist precisely because trace environmental exposure is a real thing - passive inhalation, cross-contamination, incidental contact. If you tested to zero, you’d be catching things that aren’t evidentially meaningful. The cut-off is the line at which a result says something that should be taken seriously. Below it, we report accordingly. Above it, the result carries weight.
It’s not a perfect system - no testing system is - but the combination of donor disclosure, accredited cut-off levels, and laboratory analysis is the most defensible approach available.
Q: Can you explain the benefits of your service versus sending off the laboratories or alcohol and drug testing labs/toxicologists?
A: The laboratory produces the analysis. We produce everything around it.
What that means in practice is a secure, independent, donor-focused collection process using Drager accredited screening technology - the same equipment standard used in police testing. From the moment a sample is collected, it travels under a documented chain of custody. Every step is recorded. The donor receives their own documentation. There’s a full audit trail, and it’s one that holds up when someone challenges it.
That chain of custody is where a lot of in-house or informal testing arrangements come unstuck. Sending off a sample and getting a result back is not the same as having a defensible process behind that result. If the collection isn’t documented properly, the result becomes vulnerable.
Independent collection also removes the bias question. In a family proceeding, independence isn’t just preferable - it’s arguably necessary. If there’s any suggestion that the collector had a stake in the outcome, the result is compromised before it even gets to court.
Navigating Sensitive Family Scenarios & Court of protection work.
Q: How do you handle anxious parents or volatile situations during sample collection? Is there a set of legal protocols that should be followed by law? Have your methods been disputed?
A: You go in quietly. Honestly, that’s the thing. Our technicians don’t arrive with an agenda. The introduction is passive and supportive. A lot of donors in family proceedings are frightened - of the result, of the implications, of the whole situation. Some are hostile. Some are both at once.
Consent is essential, and it has to be genuine. A collection done without proper consent isn’t a collection - it’s a liability. Our technicians are trained to handle the range of scenarios that family cases present, and that training draws on real professional experience, not just a procedural manual.
Have our methods been disputed? No, and not in a way that’s undermined the results. The combination of proper consent process, chain of custody documentation, and UKAS-accredited laboratory analysis gives us a very strong foundation if anything is ever questioned.
Q: What indicators help you distinguish between environmental exposure (like secondhand smoke) and actual ingestion in hair or nail tests?
A: We don’t try to make that call ourselves. That’s what the cut-off levels are for.
If a result comes back above the UKAS-accredited cut-off, we report it as above cut-off. Environmental exposure - second-hand smoke, incidental contact - produces trace levels that typically fall well below those thresholds. We’d be misleading the court if we said environmental exposure could never push a result above cut-off, because in genuinely extreme circumstances, it might. But the cut-off level is calibrated precisely to make that scenario uncommon.
What we can say is that a result above cut-off, from an accredited laboratory, with a documented chain of custody, is a result that carries evidential weight. What the court does with it is the court’s decision.
Q: How do you handle tests when a subject attempts to tamper with or substitute a sample?
A: No sample is collected or goes to the laboratory if it’s been tampered with. Full stop.
If we identify that a sample has been interfered with - temperature checks, integrity tests, visual indicators - the sample is discarded. The donor is informed. A warning is given, and a new collection is implemented under observation if appropriate.
An attempt to tamper with a sample is itself significant information for proceedings. It’s recorded accurately and reported. We don’t make interpretive judgements about what it means - that’s for the court. But we don’t ignore it either, and we certainly don’t submit a compromised sample.
Q: Can you share an example of how clear testing data helped resolve a high-stakes custody case safely?
A: This is probably the most honest illustration of what this work actually looks like over time.
We were asked to provide screening for a subject in a child access case. The request came from the subject themselves, so they’d consented - they believed, I think, that the results would support their position.
Blood samples were taken on multiple occasions. Each time, the results confirmed excess alcohol usage. The subject’s explanation to the court was that this was binge drinking - heavy but episodic, and happening only when the children weren’t present. The argument was essentially: yes, there’s alcohol, but not when it matters.
The court decided to require a period of abstention before any access decision was made.
Three months later, we conducted a hair sample collection.
The laboratory analysis told a different story. The alcohol markers across the hair sample were consistent with the pattern shown in the blood results - not sporadic binge use, but sustained consumption over time. The hair doesn’t forget. It doesn’t care what explanation was given in court. It reflects what the body actually metabolised.
At that point, the subject started requesting further tests - repeatedly - looking for a result that would show sobriety. The historic results continued to show no sustained period of abstention.
Supervised access only was granted.
I’m not going to pretend that’s a satisfying outcome in the way a clean bill of health would be. But it’s an honest one. The testing gave the court something it couldn’t get from witness statements or self-reported behaviour - an objective, time-sequenced record. That’s what this work is for.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can you test on short notice if a situation becomes urgent during proceedings? A: Yes - for cases where timing is critical, we can usually move quickly. The sooner you get in touch, the more options we have on scheduling. It’s always worth a call to see what’s possible rather than assuming it can’t be done.
Q: What happens if a donor refuses to provide a sample? A: Refusal is recorded accurately and reported. It doesn’t disappear. Non-compliance itself can be significant information for the court - but how it’s handled and documented matters, so it needs to go through a proper process rather than just being noted informally.
Q: Do you work directly with law firms, or does the
referral need to come through another route? A: We work directly with law firms, legal teams, and other professionals involved in family proceedings. You don’t need an intermediary. If you’re instructing us on behalf of a client or the court, we can talk through what’s needed and how to set it up properly.
Q: How long does hair testing typically cover, and does hair length affect this? A: Roughly one centimetre of hair growth per month, so the length of the sample determines the window. A longer sample can take you back six, nine, twelve months - which is why matrix selection matters. We’ll advise on the right approach based on what the proceedings need.
Q: Can Lemon Cherry provide written reports suitable for submission in court proceedings?
A: Results come with full chain-of-custody documentation and laboratory confirmation through UKAS-accredited analysis. The documentation is designed to be defensible - it’s built that way from the point of collection, not retrofitted afterwards.
About Lemon Cherry
Catherine Lambert is Managing Director of Lemon Cherry, an independent drug and alcohol
screening provider with over two decades of experience in evidential practice. Lemon Cherry provides legally defensible testing for workplaces, family proceedings, and Court of Protection cases across the UK, using Home Office approved Drager technology and UKAS-accredited laboratory analysis backed by a full chain of custody.
If you’re a legal professional looking for an independent testing provider whose process will hold up when it matters, we’re worth a conversation.
Email: info@lemoncherry.co.uk
Website: lemoncherry.co.uk/contact
Available 24/7 for retainer clients. For new enquiries, contact us through the website.