Cot death 'expert' Professor Sir Roy Meadow struck off medical register

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Cot death 'expert' Professor Sir Roy Meadow struck off

medical register

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:17:05 +0100

 

 

 

 

Quoted from an article in the Daily Mail (20/6/05) by John Sweeney:-

 

'After National Service, Meadow began work at Guy's Hospital, London,

as a junior doctor. In 1962, he climbed up several ladders socially

when he married the daughter of the then British ambassador to

Ireland, Gillian Maclennan. The couple did not have children but

adopted. The marriage ended unhappily and Meadow married his second

wife Marianne in 1978. There are no children from this marriage.

 

Meadow's first wife has said little about him, but one comment was

telling: 'I don't think he likes women but I don't think he's gay.

Roy is a misogynist. But although I can't go into details, I'm sure

he has a serous problem with women.'

It is all too easy to discount the words of a former spouse but I

heard exactly the same charge from a professor of medicine who told

me: 'Meadow is a misogynist.'

Certainly, many of his victims woud agree. Time and again, Meadow

gave evidence in court damning the mother, not the father.'

____________

 

July 16, 2005

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1696055,00.html

 

Meadow struck off for misleading the Sally Clark trial

By Sam Lister, Health Correspondent

SIR ROY MEADOW, one of the country's most eminent paediatricians, was

struck off the medical register yesterday for giving erroneous and

misleading evidence which helped to convict Sally Clark of murdering

her two sons.

 

In a highly critical judgment, the General Medical Council ruled that

Professor Meadow, 72, had " abused his position as a doctor " in

testimony he gave at Mrs Clark's trial, the consequences of which

could not be overestimated.

 

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However, legal and medical experts and children's charities questioned

the GMC's decision to strike off the doctor, who is no longer

practicising. They said that the ruling carried serious repercussions

for both the recruitment of expert witnesses and paediatricians

specialising in child protection.

 

The GMC's fitness-to-practise panel found Professor Meadow guilty of

serious professional misconduct for misleading the jury at Mrs Clark's

double murder trial in 1999, although they concluded that he had not

done so intentionally.

 

The paediatrician told the trial that the chances of two babies

suffering cot death within an affluent family was one in 73 million.

In his testimony and in evidence to police, he also referred to his

much-disputed " Meadow's law " on cot deaths — suggesting that " one in a

family is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder " .

 

Professor Meadow also contributed to the convictions of two other

mothers, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, and the failed prosecution

of Trupti Patel. They, like Mrs Clark, all denied murdering their

children and were eventually vindicated. Mrs Clark was freed in 2003

after more than two years in jail and two High Court appeals. Though

judges cited errors in pathology when quashing her conviction, it is

widely held that the statistics given by Professor Meadow, then

Britain's most eminent child-abuse expert, were what persuaded the jury.

 

Mary Clark-Glass, the chairwoman of the panel, told Professor Meadow

that he had failed in his duty by straying outside his area of

expertise. " Your misguided belief in the truth of your arguments,

maintained throughout the period in question, and indeed, throughout

this inquiry, is both disturbing and serious, " she said.

 

Outlining the panel's decision to erase Professor Meadow from the

medical register, Mrs Clark-Glass added: " Your errors, compounded by

repetition over a considerable period of time, were so fundamental and

so serious it is the panel's view that a period of suspension would be

inadequate, not in the public interest and would fail to maintain

public confidence in the profession. "

 

But legal experts said that the ruling would likely dissuade the best

doctors from offering their expert opinions in trials. Mark Solon, a

director of the legal training consultancy Bond Solon, said: " Why

would a paediatrician or any other specialist want to leave the day

job and be exposed to hostile cross-examination and potential

devastating consequences [to their career] later on? "

 

The mothers who were convicted with the help of Professor Meadow's

testimonies welcomed the verdict. In a statement, the Clark family

said that the ruling was the final chapter in the most painful and

gruelling of ordeals. " We are pleased that Meadow has finally been

held to account for his erroneous and misleading evidence, which we

feel was primarily responsible for the terrible miscarriage of justice

suffered by Sally, " the Clarks said. Mrs Anthony, who was released

from prison in April by the Court of Appeal, said that it was not a

day for celebration. " At the end of the day, the medical world has

lost a damned, fine paediatrician, " she said. " All he needed to say

was `I got it wrong'. "

 

BANNED DOCTORS

# Dr Mark Hopwood, a GP, was struck off on July 4 for writing

prescriptions to feed his addiction to the painkiller co-proxamol.

 

# Dr Patrick Cosgrove, a psychiatrist and expert in attention deficit

hyperactivity disorder, was struck off on July 1 for criticising

doctors and claiming a hospital inquiry was a whitewash, failing to

apologise or to turn up at a subsequent hearing.

 

# Professor Dick van Velzen, the pathologist who stored babies' organs

at Alder Hey Hopsital, was struck off on June 19.

 

# Dr Alex Wells, a GP, was struck off on June 10 for providing

sedatives to a woman with psychiatric problems who used them to kill

herself.

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