BMJ  2007;334:385 (24 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.39133.551852.DB

News

Southall's files to be legally scrutinised

BMJ

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, is to review 4450 "special" files kept on patients and former patients by the paediatrician David Southall amid fears that he may not have disclosed all the material he had when he acted as a prosecution witness in criminal trials.

The review, which is expected to take six months, will also examine all the criminal trials in which Professor Southall acted as a witness for the prosecution in the past 10 years.

A hearing by the General Medical Council into charges that Professor Southall kept "what amounted to secret medical records" on four children ran out of time last December and has been adjourned until November this year.

The consultant paediatrician is thought to have created 4450 "special" files, not placed with hospital medical records, during his time at London's Royal Brompton Hospital and in his current post at North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary in Stoke-on-Trent.

The attorney general said in a statement to the House of Lords, "It is said that Professor Southall kept so-called ‘special case' files containing original medical records relating to his patients that were not also kept on the child's proper hospital file.

"Concerns have been raised that in some of those cases criminal proceedings may have been taken but the existence of the files was not revealed, resulting in their not being disclosed as part of the prosecution process. I share those concerns.

"What is not clear at this stage is the nature and extent of the failure of disclosure, if such it be. I have therefore decided that I will conduct an assessment of the cases where Professor Southall was instructed as a prosecution witness to determine if any ‘special case' files existed in any cases involving criminal proceedings."

Doctors engaged as prosecution witnesses are obliged to reveal all their material to defence lawyers, including an index of any unused material. The attorney general's previous review of cases in which parents or carers were convicted of killing their children has already identified a number of cases in which Professor Southall acted as a witness. That review was instigated by concerns about expert evidence after the convictions of Sally Clark and Angela Cannings for murdering their children were quashed.

Professor Southall was found guilty of serious professional misconduct and barred from child protection work for three years in 2004 after accusing Sally Clark's husband Stephen of murdering one of their sons on the basis of watching a television interview with him.

In the current GMC hearing, the paediatrician is accused of tampering with medical records and keeping secret medical files and making them inaccessible to other people involved in the children's care. He also faces a new GMC case relating to his research into continuous negative extrathoracic pressure, an experimental system of neonatal ventilation. He denies serious professional misconduct.

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