Southall accuses media of hate campaign

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A paediatrician today blamed the media for making him a "hate figure" after he was struck off the medical register for wrongly accusing a mother of murdering her son. In his first interview since losing his case at the GMC on Tuesday, Prof David Southall insisted he had not "abused" parents and had only been interested in protecting children. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that there was a "vindictive campaign" against doctors who were trying to prevent parents from hurting their offspring and passing it off as illness. "With the help of the media, and I have to say this, there has been out there a vindictive campaign which has made hate figures out of the paediatricians involved in this kind of work," Southall said. The GMC found Southall guilty of serious misconduct for confronting the mother of a 10-year-old boy who hanged himself in 1996 with the possibility that she had drugged him and strung him up by his belt. However, the paediatrician said this morning that his actions had to be considered in the context that one child was killed by parents every week in the UK. He said he had put a series of "scenarios" to the mother - known as Mrs M - when he interviewed her, but denied that he had directly accused her of murdering her son because he had already "discounted" the idea in his own mind. "I understood only too well how serious it was for this mother, sitting there listening to these scenarios, which is what they were," he said. "These things are part of an interview, that paediatricians regularly discuss with parents when a child presents an injury. "We have a balance always, whenever we are involved in child protection, of doing the best we can for the child - which is the paramount concern - and avoiding where possible the suffering of the parent. "I don't like to see the parents suffer... but we have to, as a paediatrician involved in child protection, put the children's interests first and foremost above all else, and do our best to minimise the suffering caused by the accusation (part) of the process." He expressed concern over "serious flaws" in the GMC system, claiming that panel members lacked the expertise necessary to judge cases involving child abuse. "They have had no training in child protection before they are discussing such serious issues with doctors. I think this is where the problem is. It's not doctors against doctors. It's the fact that the regulatory body has not had sufficient training or understanding of the child protection process."