The vilification of Sir Roy
Meadow shames the medical establishment. But his legal
victory gives experts hope, argues David Southall
The strident media propaganda against child
protection specialists, which has been driven by a group
of campaigners consisting of those who have been charged
with abusing children and their mischievous advocates,
ran into a problem last week. The actions of their main
hate figure, Professor Sir Roy Meadow, were examined
with fairness and common sense by a High Court Judge, Mr
Justice Collins.
As a result, the General Medical Council's finding of
serious professional misconduct against Professor Meadow
was rescinded and he was reinstated to the medical
register. Mr Justice Collins first made it clear that
this complaint should not have been brought by the GMC.
He proceeded to extend witness immunity from civil
claims to disciplinary proceedings. It was not in the
public interest that witnesses be prevented from giving
evidence by the possibility that those adversely
affected might later take proceedings against them, he
concluded.
However, lest it be thought that Professor Meadow
escaped on a technicality, Mr Justice Collins also
deliberated on the substance of the GMC's adverse
findings. He found its approach hard to accept and
suggested that the view of the Fitness to Practise panel
- that Professor Meadow's conduct had been fundamentally
incompatible with what is expected by the public from a
registered medical practitioner - "approaches the
irrational".
Professor Meadow's "mistake" was to have quoted
innocently and in good faith, as a small part of his
expert medical opinion in a criminal trial over the
sudden death of two infants from one family, a statistic
published in a government-funded report by a research
team that included a medical statistician and a
professor of paediatric and perinatal epidemiology.
Why did the GMC, which claims that guiding doctors
and protecting patients is its raison d'être,
attack a man whose work over the years has saved many
thousands of children around the world from extreme
suffering, permanent brain damage or slow death? One
possibility is that its draconian action was an
overreaction to public pressure and a perceived need to
redress previous failures of regulation. Perhaps, most
importantly, the GMC did not understand that children,
not their parents, are a paediatrician's patients.
Professor Meadow's role as a doctor with special
knowledge developed over 30 years was to protect
children by helping to complete the jigsaw puzzle of
evidence needed to unravel many cases of child abuse. Of
course, he understood that an incorrect diagnosis could
damage children by depriving them of their innocent
parents, and in this respect his published work and vast
experience would minimise the chances of such errors.
Contrary to the ignorant comments of so many
newspaper columnists - overnight experts in a field to
which their quarry had dedicated a lifetime's study -
Professor Meadow had spoken publicly and privately about
the inappropriateness of criminal proceedings in cases
where parents who ill-treated their children were
stressed and unsupported, sometimes as a result of their
own abusive childhoods. But in the case of adults
committing clear-cut crimes of abuse against children
for their own gain he, like most paediatricians, would
reluctantly provide expert opinion in criminal
proceedings.
Through its misunderstandings of the child protection
process, egged on by the massive media campaign, the GMC
not only mistreated Professor Meadow, but was at risk of
making effective child protection incalculably more
difficult to implement. Many professionals on the front
line of recognising child abuse and initiating the
protection process have become too frightened to act. It
was bad enough to have a group of dangerously angry
family members waging a dirty war, but to jeopardise the
ability to support your own family made it too risky. Mr
Justice Collins, by helping to protect such
professionals from complaints channelled through
official regulators, has done much to support the vital
supply of expert opinion and advocacy in cases of
suspected child abuse.
Professor Meadow has been one of the bravest
advocates for children. In fighting this appeal at a
time when he has suffered so much at the hands of the
medical establishment, he has again shown himself to be
a hero to all those concerned with the often hidden
horrors of child abuse. The GMC should hang its head in
shame at what it has done to such children and to one of
the few people willing to stand up for them.
David Southall is a consultant paediatrician at the
University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust who
in 2004 was found guilty of serious professional
misconduct by the General Medical Council and prohibited
from practising child protection work for three years.
He would want all readers of this article to know this.
He writes in a personal capacity.
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