Doctors in court

doi:10.1136/bmj.a975

Published 24 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a975
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a975

Feature

Professional conduct

Doctors in court

Clare Dyer, legal correspondent

¹ BMJ

claredyer@aol.com

Features, doi: 10.1136/bmj.a933doi: 10.1136/bmj.a907

Will the General Medical Council’s new guidelines helpallay paediatricians’ fears about acting as expert witnesses?Clare Dyer reports

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Roy Meadow must rue the day he agreed to give evidence at thetrial of Sally Clark, the solicitor charged with murdering hertwo baby sons. In his 60s, and at the culmination of a longand distinguished career, the eminent professor of paediatricswas a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics andChild Health and had been knighted for his contribution to thecause of children’s health. Five years on from Mrs Clark’ssuccessful appeal, his reputation among the wider public isin tatters, his name rarely appearing in print without the epithet"discredited."

Mrs Clark’s convictions were quashed only partly becauseof Professor Meadow’s misleading statistical evidence.(The main reason was the failure of the Home Office pathologist,Alan Williams, to disclose the results of microbiological resultson tissue from one of the babies, which showed widespread Staphylococcusaureus infection.)

Still, Professor Meadow was found guilty . . . [Full text of this article]