Expert
witnesses lose immunity from censure in Meadow case
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article1932753.ece
Independant
- 27th October 2006
Doctors
who give inaccurate or negligent expert evidence in court have lost
the right to immunity from disciplinary action by their professional
body after judges upheld an appeal brought by the General Medical
Council.
The case
follows the GMC's decision to discipline Professor Sir Roy Meadow
over his discredited evidence in the wrongful murder convictions
of the solicitor Sally Clark.
In their
reserved ruling delivered yesterday, the appeal judges accepted
arguments by the GMC and the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith that
there was no such thing as immunity for experts. But the court agreed
with a previous ruling that Professor Meadow's evidence did not
represent serious professional misconduct.
After the
ruling, Professor Meadow, 73, who is retired, said he was glad that
the judgment accepted he had not committed serious professional
misconduct.
The GMC's
chief executive, Finlay Scott, said the decision to contest the
earlier High Court ruling had been vindicated. "The public
must be confident that doctors and other professionals who give
evidence in court proceedings can, if necessary, be held to account,"
he said.
Soon after
the Court of Appeal quashed his daughter's convictions for murder,
Ms Clark's father complained to the GMC that the professor's evidence
amounted to serious professional misconduct. But Ms Clark's family
last night welcomed the court's decision. In a statement they said
they were "pleased that common sense has prevailed and that
the Court of Appeal has decided that experts who give flawed evidence
should not be immune from disciplinary proceedings by their professional
bodies".
Professor
Meadow was subsequently found guilty by the GMC in July last year.
But the High Court judge Mr Justice Collins said in a ruling earlier
this year that it was "quite unnecessary" to erase from
the medical register someone like Professor Meadow, whom he said
was a first-class paediatrician.
Dr Patricia
Hamilton, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child
Health, said it would work with the GMC to ensure paediatricians
were not deterred from their responsibilities in safeguarding children.
So
what happened to all the feared miscarriages of justice ? 9th January
2006
