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http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0674.htm
NORTH families who had children removed because of evidence from discredited paediatrician David Southall could have them returned, we can reveal. Solicitor General Vera Baird, who is also MP for Redcar, raised the possibility of a full review of these cases after the General Medical Council struck off the controversial doctor last week for serious professional misconduct. The GMC decided Southall had abused his position by falsely accusing a mother of drugging and murdering her son adding that he had a “deep-seated attitudinal problem”. It is the second time in three years he has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct. Ms Baird said: “I shall be raising the issue with the Crown Prosecution Service and the Attorney General, Patricia Scotland. Discussions will be held about how to deal with any criminal court cases David Southall’s evidence has played a role in.” The Teesside MP, who is a human rights expert and former barrister in the family court division, has tabled more than 100 questions into the now discredited condition Munchausen syndrome by proxy (Msbp), which Southall had used against parents. The condition was based on the theory that a carer — usually a mother — would harm someone to get attention for themselves. Before entering parliament Ms Baird helped highlight the case of a North mum who had two children taken into care after Southall accused her of having Msbp. He also accused the grandmother of the kids of having the condition. Solicitor Bill Bache, who is representing a number of North cases, said: “There is a very great need to review these cases. It is my experience that evidence by David Southall has been given in many cases.
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
The victimisation of David Southall is disastrous for abused children
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http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0673.htm
The GMC decision to strike this doctor off the medical register exposes its ignorance and leaves professionals in despair, says senior paediatrician Nigel Speight Last week's decision of the General Medical Council to strike distinguished paediatrician Dr David Southall off the register is causing shock waves throughout the profession. Paediatricians are in despair at the controversy their work is attracting, and are worried about participating in child abuse cases. Junior doctors contemplating career choices will surely shy away from paediatrics in future. Already there is a practical consequence to the verdict in that many of the members of our group, Professionals against Child Abuse (Paca), may be reluctant to participate in the child death review panels being set up to scrutinise all cases of child deaths. Paca discussed the likely consequences of past and future actions in this area with the GMC last summer. We obviously failed in our attempts at quiet diplomacy. We feel the GMC as it currently functions is not 'fit for purpose' in assessing and judging cases involving child protection and we have lost all confidence in it in this area. David Southall was suspended from child protection work three years ago after raising concerns about an incident involving nasal bleeding and difficulty in breathing in the first baby in the Clark family 10 days before he died. This present case that has led to his erasure from the medical register concerned a woman whose 10-year-old son had been found dead in the family home from hanging. Her other eight-year-old son was subsequently taken into care because he was allegedly expressing threats to kill himself. Because of concerns about the possibility of an abusive cause for the first child's death, Dr Southall was instructed by the family court and social services to interview the mother and explore these issues. This he did in the presence of a senior social worker who took a written account of the whole interview. The mother claimed - and the GMC chose to believe her - that Dr Southall had accused of murdering her son: Dr Southall denied that he had said this or that he had interviewed the mother in an aggressive and intimidating manner and his statements on this were completely supported by the social worker who had been present throughout the interview. There has been an orchestrated and vindictive campaign against Southall ever since his work proving (with video evidence) that in some cases where babies presented with recurrent apnoeic attacks the cause was repeated episodes of smothering by the mothers. This important insight saved the lives of significant numbers of children but also inspired something akin to hatred among his opponents. These include an organisation fronted by the MAMA website (Mothers against Munchausen). Ringleaders in the campaign include Mrs Penny Mellor (who has reported Dr Southall to the GMC over 20 times, has accused him of murder and says she wants to see him behind bars), certain journalists and an MP, who has used parliamentary privilege to liken Dr Southall to Joseph Mengele in his 'experiments' (ie research) on children. All of this would be laughable if the GMC could be trusted to take a critical view of where these complainants are coming from. Unfortunately, it is under pressure from the government to be seen to be tough on doctors, so it could be said to have a conflict of interest. Even more serious, they are untrained and largely ignorant of the complex realities of child abuse and also of professional guidelines in the field. The panel in Southall's hearing consisted of three lay assessors and an orthopaedic surgeon. In finding him guilty of keeping 'secret', ie separate, records they showed their profound ignorance of normal practice. They chose to disbelieve the senior social worker who was present during the interview and kept a written record of what was said, and accepted instead the mother's story in its entirety. As it happens, Dr Southall had already been investigated and cleared by his employers on precisely the same charges regarding this mother's allegation eight years earlier, the panel then consisting of three paediatricians experienced in child protection work.
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0673.htm
The GMC decision to strike this doctor off the medical register exposes its ignorance and leaves professionals in despair, says senior paediatrician Nigel Speight Last week's decision of the General Medical Council to strike distinguished paediatrician Dr David Southall off the register is causing shock waves throughout the profession. Paediatricians are in despair at the controversy their work is attracting, and are worried about participating in child abuse cases. Junior doctors contemplating career choices will surely shy away from paediatrics in future. Already there is a practical consequence to the verdict in that many of the members of our group, Professionals against Child Abuse (Paca), may be reluctant to participate in the child death review panels being set up to scrutinise all cases of child deaths. Paca discussed the likely consequences of past and future actions in this area with the GMC last summer. We obviously failed in our attempts at quiet diplomacy. We feel the GMC as it currently functions is not 'fit for purpose' in assessing and judging cases involving child protection and we have lost all confidence in it in this area. David Southall was suspended from child protection work three years ago after raising concerns about an incident involving nasal bleeding and difficulty in breathing in the first baby in the Clark family 10 days before he died. This present case that has led to his erasure from the medical register concerned a woman whose 10-year-old son had been found dead in the family home from hanging. Her other eight-year-old son was subsequently taken into care because he was allegedly expressing threats to kill himself. Because of concerns about the possibility of an abusive cause for the first child's death, Dr Southall was instructed by the family court and social services to interview the mother and explore these issues. This he did in the presence of a senior social worker who took a written account of the whole interview. The mother claimed - and the GMC chose to believe her - that Dr Southall had accused of murdering her son: Dr Southall denied that he had said this or that he had interviewed the mother in an aggressive and intimidating manner and his statements on this were completely supported by the social worker who had been present throughout the interview. There has been an orchestrated and vindictive campaign against Southall ever since his work proving (with video evidence) that in some cases where babies presented with recurrent apnoeic attacks the cause was repeated episodes of smothering by the mothers. This important insight saved the lives of significant numbers of children but also inspired something akin to hatred among his opponents. These include an organisation fronted by the MAMA website (Mothers against Munchausen). Ringleaders in the campaign include Mrs Penny Mellor (who has reported Dr Southall to the GMC over 20 times, has accused him of murder and says she wants to see him behind bars), certain journalists and an MP, who has used parliamentary privilege to liken Dr Southall to Joseph Mengele in his 'experiments' (ie research) on children. All of this would be laughable if the GMC could be trusted to take a critical view of where these complainants are coming from. Unfortunately, it is under pressure from the government to be seen to be tough on doctors, so it could be said to have a conflict of interest. Even more serious, they are untrained and largely ignorant of the complex realities of child abuse and also of professional guidelines in the field. The panel in Southall's hearing consisted of three lay assessors and an orthopaedic surgeon. In finding him guilty of keeping 'secret', ie separate, records they showed their profound ignorance of normal practice. They chose to disbelieve the senior social worker who was present during the interview and kept a written record of what was said, and accepted instead the mother's story in its entirety. As it happens, Dr Southall had already been investigated and cleared by his employers on precisely the same charges regarding this mother's allegation eight years earlier, the panel then consisting of three paediatricians experienced in child protection work.
A bittersweet christening for the boy social workers couldn't take away
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http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0672.htm
It was a simple, informal ceremony but one that symbolised a family's bittersweet struggle against the social services, the medical establishment and the British legal system. Brandon Webster was christened in front of his long-suffering parents Mark and Nicky and scores of family members, neighbours and friends in tiny St Martin's Church at Cromer, Norfolk. The service last Sunday was a fittingly joyful symbol of the couple's High Court victory over Norfolk's social services, who wanted to take 18-month-old Brandon into care straight from birth. But it was also a poignant reminder of the absence of their three older children, who can be identified only as Children A, B and C. They were seized by Norfolk County Council in November 2003 and forcibly adopted because of false claims of abuse. Mark, 34, and Nicky, 27, who fled to Ireland to stop Brandon being snatched at birth, this year mounted a successful legal challenge to Norfolk County Council's attempt to take him. The High Court heard new expert medical opinion that tiny fractures revealed on X-rays of Child B were not caused by violent twisting and shaking, as social services believed – but were symptoms of scurvy, a now rare vitamin deficiency caused by the family GP's advice that the child should be fed on soya milk deficient in Vitamin C. Nicky said: "We always find this time of year particularly difficult because we can't stop thinking of our other three children and what they will be doing at Christmas. "It was lovely to have all our family and friends in church for Brandon's christening. But it was heartbreaking that our other children could not be there.
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0672.htm
It was a simple, informal ceremony but one that symbolised a family's bittersweet struggle against the social services, the medical establishment and the British legal system. Brandon Webster was christened in front of his long-suffering parents Mark and Nicky and scores of family members, neighbours and friends in tiny St Martin's Church at Cromer, Norfolk. The service last Sunday was a fittingly joyful symbol of the couple's High Court victory over Norfolk's social services, who wanted to take 18-month-old Brandon into care straight from birth. But it was also a poignant reminder of the absence of their three older children, who can be identified only as Children A, B and C. They were seized by Norfolk County Council in November 2003 and forcibly adopted because of false claims of abuse. Mark, 34, and Nicky, 27, who fled to Ireland to stop Brandon being snatched at birth, this year mounted a successful legal challenge to Norfolk County Council's attempt to take him. The High Court heard new expert medical opinion that tiny fractures revealed on X-rays of Child B were not caused by violent twisting and shaking, as social services believed – but were symptoms of scurvy, a now rare vitamin deficiency caused by the family GP's advice that the child should be fed on soya milk deficient in Vitamin C. Nicky said: "We always find this time of year particularly difficult because we can't stop thinking of our other three children and what they will be doing at Christmas. "It was lovely to have all our family and friends in church for Brandon's christening. But it was heartbreaking that our other children could not be there.
Haunted by the nightmare of the secret family courts
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http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0671.htm
After being suspected of child abuse, the Ward family are out to change the family justice system What do you think? Leave your comments in the box at the bottom of this page When hospital staff pulled the curtains around her son’s bed and asked: “Poor little baby. What have you been doing?”, Victoria Ward knew something was suddenly very wrong. A week earlier the Ward family, who live in Cambridge, had been at the height of their happiness. According to Victoria, they both had “good jobs, a secure marriage, a wonderful house and a three-month-old baby we had been planning, hoping for, wanting. Life was lovely”. With little William’s arrival, Victoria, now a baby-yoga teacher, threw herself into all the activities middle-class mothers love: swimming, massage, baby cinema. And when William had a restless night, Victoria, ever the careful mum, took him to the GP, not once but on three consecutive days until a doctor agreed that his leg looked swollen and sent the family to hospital for an explanation. Victoria, 34, and Jake, 35, sensible, professional people from supportive and stable families, are the last couple you could imagine being accused of child abuse. But in 2005, after William’s leg was x-rayed in hospital and found to have an unexplained fracture, that’s exactly what they were suspected of. Out of the blue, they faced a police investigation and the terrifying threat of their son being taken into care. Victoria’s parents had to move from Devon to live with them round the clock before they were allowed to take William home from hospital. Then began an 18-month nightmare encompassing parental assessments, endless reports from social workers and doctors and finally a court case. In cases of child abuse, the fate of families can turn on the evidence of doctors prepared to stand up as “expert witnesses” (often charging hundreds of pounds an hour) and give their opinion on whether or not a parent has harmed a child. In the criminal courts the evidence can lead to a mother or father being jailed. In the family courts – held in secret – a child can be taken away from its parents and fostered or adopted. Child protection is a controversial area, and in recent years some of the worst miscarriages of British justice have followed the testimony of so-called expert witnesses in the field, a number of whom have been accused of being zealots or just plain wrong in their willingness to blame parents – even those who protest their innocence – for children’s injuries. The conviction of the solicitor Sally Clark, jailed in 1999 after being wrongly convicted of murdering two of her children, was based on the evidence of Professor Sir Roy Meadow, who famously and – it later turned out – inaccurately testified that the chance of two of her babies having suffered cot death was one in 73m. Clark, 42, was freed on appeal in 2003 but never recovered, and died of acute alcohol intoxication at her home in March. Angela Cannings was another innocent mother wrongly convicted of murdering her child during a trial at which Meadow also gave evidence. She too was cleared by the Court of Appeal. Last week Professor David Southall, who has been described both as Meadow’s pro-tégé and as a pioneer in the detection of child abuse, was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council (GMC). It ruled that he had abused his position by suggesting to Mandy Morris that she had drugged and murdered her 10-year-old son Lee. The child, who had been bullied at school, had in fact hanged himself from the curtain rail. The GMC said Southall had “deep-seated attitudinal problems”. Yet, far from apologising to those whose lives have been wrecked, the paediatrician struck a defiant note when he appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme. He was, he said, “an expert in life-threatening child abuse” and a victim of a vindictive campaign against doctors trying to protect children. “I am the expert and I know what I am talking about,” he insisted. Compared with Clark and Cannings, Victoria and Jake Ward were “lucky”. After a seven-hour wait in a police cell and interview room, where they were interrogated on suspicion of GBH and child cruelty, the police dropped the case. The county council, however, carried on with childcare proceedings. By the time the hearings started, Victoria – then pregnant with her daughter Hattie, who is now nine months old – knew her second child was also at risk of being taken away if the court found, “on the balance of probabilities”, that the couple had harmed their son. But, rack their brains as they might, their only explanation for how William could have fractured his leg was that he might have trapped it at night between the cot bars and caused the injury in trying to wriggle free. Over 10 months, Victoria, Jake and William visited no fewer than three expert witnesses – the judge wanted to hear a range of opinion. Finally, after a two-week hearing involving conflicting evidence from the experts, the couple were exonerated. “There is no cogent evidence that these parents injured their son,” the judge concluded. Now Victoria, who kept a video diary of the experience, is pressing ahead with a legal battle to be allowed to name the experts who gave evidence. Like many parents caught up in the trauma of trying to prove they have not harmed their children, she and Jake have found the secrecy of the family courts deeply disturbing. They believe it makes it difficult to right miscarriages of justice and hinders research into real medical conditions that may explain fractures and other injuries in babies. “I thought there had been a trend towards greater openness in the family courts after the miscarriages of justice of Sally Clark and Angela Cannings, and that I would be able to speak out and tell my story. But it is incredibly difficult,” she says. During the hearing, she attended a support group for parents of children with unexplained fractures and discovered that although parents are not allowed to discuss cases in the family courts many of the same names came up again and again.
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0671.htm
After being suspected of child abuse, the Ward family are out to change the family justice system What do you think? Leave your comments in the box at the bottom of this page When hospital staff pulled the curtains around her son’s bed and asked: “Poor little baby. What have you been doing?”, Victoria Ward knew something was suddenly very wrong. A week earlier the Ward family, who live in Cambridge, had been at the height of their happiness. According to Victoria, they both had “good jobs, a secure marriage, a wonderful house and a three-month-old baby we had been planning, hoping for, wanting. Life was lovely”. With little William’s arrival, Victoria, now a baby-yoga teacher, threw herself into all the activities middle-class mothers love: swimming, massage, baby cinema. And when William had a restless night, Victoria, ever the careful mum, took him to the GP, not once but on three consecutive days until a doctor agreed that his leg looked swollen and sent the family to hospital for an explanation. Victoria, 34, and Jake, 35, sensible, professional people from supportive and stable families, are the last couple you could imagine being accused of child abuse. But in 2005, after William’s leg was x-rayed in hospital and found to have an unexplained fracture, that’s exactly what they were suspected of. Out of the blue, they faced a police investigation and the terrifying threat of their son being taken into care. Victoria’s parents had to move from Devon to live with them round the clock before they were allowed to take William home from hospital. Then began an 18-month nightmare encompassing parental assessments, endless reports from social workers and doctors and finally a court case. In cases of child abuse, the fate of families can turn on the evidence of doctors prepared to stand up as “expert witnesses” (often charging hundreds of pounds an hour) and give their opinion on whether or not a parent has harmed a child. In the criminal courts the evidence can lead to a mother or father being jailed. In the family courts – held in secret – a child can be taken away from its parents and fostered or adopted. Child protection is a controversial area, and in recent years some of the worst miscarriages of British justice have followed the testimony of so-called expert witnesses in the field, a number of whom have been accused of being zealots or just plain wrong in their willingness to blame parents – even those who protest their innocence – for children’s injuries. The conviction of the solicitor Sally Clark, jailed in 1999 after being wrongly convicted of murdering two of her children, was based on the evidence of Professor Sir Roy Meadow, who famously and – it later turned out – inaccurately testified that the chance of two of her babies having suffered cot death was one in 73m. Clark, 42, was freed on appeal in 2003 but never recovered, and died of acute alcohol intoxication at her home in March. Angela Cannings was another innocent mother wrongly convicted of murdering her child during a trial at which Meadow also gave evidence. She too was cleared by the Court of Appeal. Last week Professor David Southall, who has been described both as Meadow’s pro-tégé and as a pioneer in the detection of child abuse, was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council (GMC). It ruled that he had abused his position by suggesting to Mandy Morris that she had drugged and murdered her 10-year-old son Lee. The child, who had been bullied at school, had in fact hanged himself from the curtain rail. The GMC said Southall had “deep-seated attitudinal problems”. Yet, far from apologising to those whose lives have been wrecked, the paediatrician struck a defiant note when he appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme. He was, he said, “an expert in life-threatening child abuse” and a victim of a vindictive campaign against doctors trying to protect children. “I am the expert and I know what I am talking about,” he insisted. Compared with Clark and Cannings, Victoria and Jake Ward were “lucky”. After a seven-hour wait in a police cell and interview room, where they were interrogated on suspicion of GBH and child cruelty, the police dropped the case. The county council, however, carried on with childcare proceedings. By the time the hearings started, Victoria – then pregnant with her daughter Hattie, who is now nine months old – knew her second child was also at risk of being taken away if the court found, “on the balance of probabilities”, that the couple had harmed their son. But, rack their brains as they might, their only explanation for how William could have fractured his leg was that he might have trapped it at night between the cot bars and caused the injury in trying to wriggle free. Over 10 months, Victoria, Jake and William visited no fewer than three expert witnesses – the judge wanted to hear a range of opinion. Finally, after a two-week hearing involving conflicting evidence from the experts, the couple were exonerated. “There is no cogent evidence that these parents injured their son,” the judge concluded. Now Victoria, who kept a video diary of the experience, is pressing ahead with a legal battle to be allowed to name the experts who gave evidence. Like many parents caught up in the trauma of trying to prove they have not harmed their children, she and Jake have found the secrecy of the family courts deeply disturbing. They believe it makes it difficult to right miscarriages of justice and hinders research into real medical conditions that may explain fractures and other injuries in babies. “I thought there had been a trend towards greater openness in the family courts after the miscarriages of justice of Sally Clark and Angela Cannings, and that I would be able to speak out and tell my story. But it is incredibly difficult,” she says. During the hearing, she attended a support group for parents of children with unexplained fractures and discovered that although parents are not allowed to discuss cases in the family courts many of the same names came up again and again.
Media request
Full Article and Credits:
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0670.htm
Currently the Guardian UK newspaper is currently working on a cover story for the G2 section of the Guardian newspaper on the significant increase in the number of babies being removed from mothers deemed unfit. The article will take a look at what's behind this trend - an exploration of some of the complexities and — and will include plenty of voices of mothers who have lost babies, adopted adults, adoptive mothers, and social workers and others who have to make these very difficult decisions. They are particularly interested in finding mothers who have had a young baby removed from them. Kate is happy to change names and identifying details if required. They have to write the piece by mid Jan but hoping to tie up all interviews before Christmas.
http://www.stopinjusticenow.com/News_0670.htm
Currently the Guardian UK newspaper is currently working on a cover story for the G2 section of the Guardian newspaper on the significant increase in the number of babies being removed from mothers deemed unfit. The article will take a look at what's behind this trend - an exploration of some of the complexities and — and will include plenty of voices of mothers who have lost babies, adopted adults, adoptive mothers, and social workers and others who have to make these very difficult decisions. They are particularly interested in finding mothers who have had a young baby removed from them. Kate is happy to change names and identifying details if required. They have to write the piece by mid Jan but hoping to tie up all interviews before Christmas.
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