Lawyers for the paediatrician David Southall this week accused the General Medical Council of reversing the burden of proof and requiring him to prove his innocence, as he launched a High Court appeal against a finding of serious professional misconduct.

In a four day hearing that began on Tuesday 31 March Dr Southall is appealing against a GMC fitness to practise panel’s findings of fact, the misconduct ruling, and a decision to strike him off the medical register.

The fitness to practise panel, which had a lay majority, ruled in December 2007 that he had inappropriately accused a mother of murdering her child, kept “special case files” on …