Sally Clark
To Richard Horton Esq
The Editor
The Lancet
26 July, 2005
Ever since we proved my wife's innocence two and a half years ago, we have
deliberately avoided publicity. We have refused the many requests for
interviews and tried to ignore the large number of untrue and hurtful
articles and comments published about us, because we simply wish to get on
with our lives. However, Richard Horton's two articles, published in such a
highly respected and influential a journal, contained so many inaccuracies
and one-sided opinions that I feared that, without correction, they might
prejudice independent observers. Hence this letter which I write with the
greatest of reluctance.
I hope that the following points may provide some balance to help Horton's
readers better understand the nature of Professor Meadow's GMC disciplinary
hearing, his true role in the miscarriage of justice suffered by my wife,
why he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct (SPM) and the
real culprits responsible for the apparent reluctance of doctors to become
involved in child protection matters.
Horton argues 'Meadow's referral to the GMC should not have taken place'
and that their verdict was variously 'bad', 'unjust', 'grievously
erroneous' and lamentable'. He says Meadow 'did not fail in his duty as an
expert' and that he was 'not guily of SPM'. I am not an apologist for the
GMC. Indeed, I feel that it has failed my family in a number of ways over
the years. However, it is the current self-regulatory body for doctors and
I do not understand how Horton can treat its findings in such a dismissive
way. It is incredibly difficult to persuade the GMC to investigate a
doctor, and only the most powerful complaints survive its brutal screening
processes. The GMC's Fitness to Practise Panel is a quasi-judicial body
which operates like a court of law. Meadow's Panel comprised 3 doctors and
3 other intelligent and experienced lay members. The legal assesor was a
judge. Meadow was represented by a very able QC who defended him robustly.
The hearing took place over many days and detailed evidence was brought by
both sides. The Panel listened carefully to that evidence (including
several days of evidence by Meadow, himself) and took its time to reach its
considered judgment. This was not some kind of kangaroo court, and it
afforded Meadow a rather fairer hearing than Sally received at trial as a
result of his 'misleading and erroneous' evidence. The Panel found
virtually all of the charges proved beyond reasonable doubt (including that
Meadow did, indeed, breach his duty as an expert witness) and that he was,
indeed, guilty of SPM. Its reasoned and detailed judgment is damning, and
its resultant decision to strike Meadow off the medical register is rather
more 'proportionate' than the life sentence my wife received.
Horton claims 'Meadow is a scapegoat', but he is not the only professional
involved in our case whose conduct has been called into doubt- two other
doctors who gave false evidence have already been found guilty of SPM by
the GMC (our MP's complaint against another was screened out), the Police
Complaints Authority has investigated the DI in charge and the Bar Council
has charged the prosecuting counsel with SPM.
Horton says that 'Meadow simply reported a sentence from the draft CESDI
Report sent to him by a colleague', but even he acknowledges that Meadow
did far more than this. When giving evidence at my wife's committal
proceedings, Meadow used a '1 in a milion' double Sudden Infant Deaths
(SIDS) statistic to persuade the magistrate to send the case to trial, even
though we had never claimed that our babies were SIDS. (He had also used it
in his earlier evidence in R v. Donna Anthony.) When asked at the GMC
hearing for the source of that figure, Meadow said he did not know but
thought that it might have come from a member of the audience at a lecture
he had given. Three days before my wife's trial, he introduced the "1 in 73
million" statistic from the CESDI Report but, when giving evidence, went on
to embellish it with his Grand National and 'jackpot'analogies. He also
made a further statement that 2 SIDS only occur in the same family once
every 100 years, but failed to disclose to the court data also contained in
the Report which stated that there had been 5 same-family double SIDS in
the 3 years during which the Report had been conducted, in part of the UK
alone.
Horton argues 'The crucial error was legal not medical', but Sally's false
prosecution was commenced by the CPS only after doctors made false
diagnoses. Whilst the lawyers and the system are not without blame for the
miscarriage of justice, she then spent three and a half years incarcerated
in prison as a 'child murderer' due to incorrect evidence given by doctors,
not lawyers. Readers may recall that Dr.Williams, the pathologist, was
found guilty of SPM last month, among other things, because of his
incompetent post mortems and his failure to disclose critical test results.
Virtually all of his initial autopsy findings of 'injuries' 'crumbled to
dust' when critical examination by paediatric experts found them either to
be non-existent or to have been misinterpreted/caused by Williams, himself.
Even after Meadow's statistics were exposed as being false, he continued to
choose to appear in court as a prosecution expert witness and to give
evidence as to the rarity of multiple SIDS in one family- R v. Cannings and
R v.Patel. The second court of appeal in our case held that Meadow's
statistics were 'grossly misleading' and sufficient on their own to make
Sally's convictions unsafe.
Horton says that Meadow 'gave his opinion that the babies were unlikely to
have died natural deaths and presented supporting evidence'. But, when our
legal team asked Meadow to provide details of a crucial part of that
supporting evidence, he said that he was unable to do so because he
secretary had 'shredded it'. Its destruction meant that his testimony could
not subjected to critical scrutiny and challenge. Of the 10 experts at
trial, only the discredited Williams was prepared to support Meadow's
'unnatural deaths' theory, and no fewer that 12 leading national and
international medical experts made statements for the second appeal, with
varying degrees of certainty, but all to the effect that Harry had died
from bacterial meningitis. Professor Morris said 'No other cause of death
is sustainable'.
Horton says that Meadow 'capitulated to lawyerly pressure' and that his
error was due to the 'broken expert witness system'. Anyone who has seen
Meadow give evidence, will know that he is the least likely of men to
'capitulate' to lawyers. He is an experienced and accomplished performer in
the witness box, he has lectured to judges about how they should treat
experts and, in his book "The ABC of Child Abuse", he advises doctors how
to give evidence in court and how to resist pressure from barristers. The
expert witness system is not perfect, but is only being broken by those
experts, like Meadow, who breach their duties.
Horton argues that the verdict will 'profoundly damage the future of child
protection services in Britain' and that the real danger of the judgment is
that 'children will be put at greater risk of abuse and murder'. Despite
this emotive language, references to Victoria Climbie and recent
scaremongering from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the
Panel's decision in the Meadow hearing has not suddenly changed the rules
of good medical practice and the duties of expert witnesses in child
protection cases. It has simply reaffirmed them, and no doctor who gives
honest, impartial and balanced evidence within his field of expertise has
anything whatsoever to fear. Readers should not be misled into thinking
that Meadow was found guilty of SPM simply because he made a one-off
mistake. He was found guilty because he gave 'misleading and erroneous
evidence' outside his expertise which he 'compounded by repetition over a
considerable period of time'. He went on to embellish it and failed to
disclose evidence which provided balance. The Panel rejected his arguments
that he was not an expert and that everyone except him was to blame. They
found, in particular that he made 'selective use of statistics without
placing them in context', failed 'to adhere to strict scientific
principles', 'failed to provide a fair context for the limited (if any)
relevance of SIDs deaths' and maintained a 'disturbing and serious'
'misguided belief in the truth' of his arguments throughout the entire case
and the hearing. They found also that he had 'abused' his position as a
doctor and 'may have seriously undermined the authority of doctors giving
evidence'. He has refused to apologise and apparently stands by his
misconduct.
Thus, in my view, at least part of the responsibility for children who may
be abused or murdered in the future rests with those in the medical
establisment who frighten away colleagues from child protection work by
implying that Meadow has been persecuted for simply making a single
mistake, when this is demonstrably not the case.
Your faithfully,
Stephen Clark