LONDON (Reuters), Jul 10 - The General Medical Council will challenge on Monday a High Court ruling that expert witnesses should be immune from disciplinary action by their professional bodies over testimony they give in court.
The case before the Appeal Court follows the February reversal of a ban by the GMC against Roy Meadow who is practizing as a doctor after a judge ruled the pediatrician's misleading testimony at a criminal trial was an "honest" mistake.
Meadow was an expert witness in the trials of Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony, who were all freed by the Court of Appeal after serving years in prison after they had been wrongfully convicted of killing their children.
Last July, the GMC struck off Meadow from the medical register after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct. The GMC said the ban had been in the public interest because Meadow had shown "little acceptance of and insight into his misconduct or its gravity."
When the ban was overturned, the GMC said the ruling undermined its role as a regulator for the medical profession.
On Monday, the GMC will seek to overturn the ruling that expert witnesses should be immune from disciplinary action.
Clark's 1999 conviction for murdering her two sons was quashed in 2003 after she had served three years behind bars.
Meadow had argued at the trial the chance of two babies dying of cot death within one family was "one in 73 million," an assertion later disputed by experts as having no statistical basis.
Meadow's expertise had also been used in the cases of Cannings, who served 18 months after being wrongly found guilty of killing her two sons, and Anthony who served six years after being convicted of killing her son and daughter.
Meadow's reasoning that "one sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious, and three is murder, unless proven otherwise" became known as Meadow's Law.
Last Updated: 2006-07-10 11:51:06 -0400 (Reuters Health)
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