UK doctor’s baby death evidence ruled misleading
A British doctor who testified at the trials of several women wrongly convicted of murdering their babies was found at a medical tribunal on Wednesday to have given “misleading” evidence in one of the cases.
Paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow could be banned from practising if the decision by the General Medical Council in London leads to him being found guilty of serious professional misconduct.
Meadow was an expert witness in the trial of Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, who were all freed by the Court of Appeal after serving years in prison after they had been wrongfully convicted of killing their children.
The GMC considered evidence he gave at the 1999 trial of Clark, a solicitor accused of killing her two sons, Christopher and Harry.
She was found guilty of murder, but freed by the Court of Appeal in 2003.
Meadow had argued at the trial that the chance of two babies dying of cot death within one family was “one in 73 million”, an assertion later disputed by experts as having no statistical basis.
A GMC panel on Wednesday concluded Meadow’s evidence at Clark’s trial was both “erroneous” and “misleading”.
However, the panel found that Meadow had not intended to mislead in the evidence he gave.
“No one is in any doubt that the evidence on which my daughter was convicted was seriously flawed,” Clark’s father Frank Lockyer said after the ruling.
“This hearing was first and foremost about culpability and accountability, which seems to have been well and truly settled.”
The GMC will now decide whether Meadow’s actions amount to serious professional misconduct and what sanctions to take.
It is expected to reach its verdict by Friday
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