The retired paediatrician Roy Meadow was unfairly found guilty of serious professional misconduct and struck off the medical register, his barrister told the High Court in London this week. Professor Meadow was found last year to have given misleading statistical evidence at the trial of Sally Clark for the murder of her two sons.

Mrs Clark was convicted in 1999 of murdering babies Christopher and Harry, but her convictions were quashed on a second appeal in 2003. Last July the General Medical Council concluded that Professor Meadow, an expert witness for the prosecution, had abused his position as a doctor and ordered his name to be erased from the register (BMJ 2005:331;177).

This week, as …