SIR ROY MEADOW, one of the country’s most eminent paediatricians, was struck off the medical register yesterday for giving erroneous and misleading evidence which helped to convict Sally Clark of murdering her two sons.

In a highly critical judgment, the General Medical Council ruled that Professor Meadow, 72, had “abused his position as a doctor” in testimony he gave at Mrs Clark’s trial, the consequences of which could not be overestimated.

However, legal and medical experts and children’s charities questioned the GMC’s decision to strike off the doctor, who is no longer practicising. They said that the ruling carried serious repercussions for both the recruitment of expert witnesses and paediatricians specialising in child protection.

The GMC’s fitness-to-practise panel found Professor Meadow guilty of serious professional misconduct for misleading the jury at Mrs Clark’s double murder trial in 1999, although they concluded that he had not done so intentionally.

The paediatrician told the trial that the chances of two babies suffering cot death within an affluent family was one in 73 million. In his testimony and in evidence to police, he also referred to his much-disputed “Meadow’s law” on cot deaths — suggesting that “one in a family is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder”.

Professor Meadow also contributed to the convictions of two other mothers, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, and the failed prosecution of Trupti Patel. They, like Mrs Clark, all denied murdering their children and were eventually vindicated. Mrs Clark was freed in 2003 after more than two years in jail and two High Court appeals. Though judges cited errors in pathology when quashing her conviction, it is widely held that the statistics given by Professor Meadow, then Britain’s most eminent child-abuse expert, were what persuaded the jury.

Mary Clark-Glass, the chairwoman of the panel, told Professor Meadow that he had failed in his duty by straying outside his area of expertise. “Your misguided belief in the truth of your arguments, maintained throughout the period in question, and indeed, throughout this inquiry, is both disturbing and serious,” she said.

Outlining the panel’s decision to erase Professor Meadow from the medical register, Mrs Clark-Glass added: “Your errors, compounded by repetition over a considerable period of time, were so fundamental and so serious it is the panel’s view that a period of suspension would be inadequate, not in the public interest and would fail to maintain public confidence in the profession.”

But legal experts said that the ruling would likely dissuade the best doctors from offering their expert opinions in trials. Mark Solon, a director of the legal training consultancy Bond Solon, said: “Why would a paediatrician or any other specialist want to leave the day job and be exposed to hostile cross-examination and potential devastating consequences [to their career] later on?”

The mothers who were convicted with the help of Professor Meadow’s testimonies welcomed the verdict. In a statement, the Clark family said that the ruling was the final chapter in the most painful and gruelling of ordeals. “We are pleased that Meadow has finally been held to account for his erroneous and misleading evidence, which we feel was primarily responsible for the terrible miscarriage of justice suffered by Sally,” the Clarks said. Mrs Anthony, who was released from prison in April by the Court of Appeal, said that it was not a day for celebration. “At the end of the day, the medical world has lost a damned, fine paediatrician,” she said. “All he needed to say was ‘I got it wrong’.”

BANNED DOCTORS

Dr Alex Wells, a GP, was struck off on June 10 for providing sedatives to a woman with psychiatric problems who used them to kill herself.

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