FAA Scotland - In good faith? a bad exuse

The Times March 02, 2006

In good faith? A bad excuse
Camilla Cavendish

Twelve days after the Roy Meadow case, the essential nature of the judgment is still becoming clear

SINCE THE High Court overruled the General Medical Council and reinstated Professor Sir Roy Meadow it has been 12 days and counting. Yet the implications have not yet been fully understood. You can get away with being wrong, the judgment seems to say, as long as you were wrong in good faith. You should not be disciplined by your professional body, even if that body deems that you have broken its rules. Pull up the drawbridge.
The GMC drew a different distinction when it found Sir Roy guilty of serious professional misconduct. It agreed that Meadow had not intended to mislead. But it judged that his conduct in plucking a grossly misleading statistic from a study (that there was a 73 million to 1 chance of suffering two sudden infant deaths, as Sally Clark did), while withholding the conclusion of that study (that one cot death makes another more likely) was incompatible with what the public expects from a medical practitioner. Many of us would agree. We would concur with the judges in the Clark appeal who “rather suspect that with the graphic reference by Professor Meadow to the chances of backing long-odds winners of the Grand National year after year, this (evidence) may have had a major effect on (the jurors’) thinking”. Quite.

As the Royal Society of Statisticians pointed out rather huffily at the time, a simple telephone call to its office would have exposed the faulty logic. But the call never came. The lawyers never cross-examined Professor Meadow on that statistic. So he was not the only one to make a mistake. There is genuine concern that paediatricians have been discouraged from giving expert opinions by the prospect of being singled out for disciplinary action. But any expert giving an opinion that could lead to wrongful conviction must surely let that opinion be tested.

To what extent should good intentions exonerate harmful actions? Who should judge where good faith ends and perjury begins? “Good faith” was not a defence that cut much ice with those who this week suspended the four probation officers who let Damien Hanson slip through the system to murder John Monckton. Harry Fletcher, the assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said on Tuesday that “it is absolutely essential that corporate responsibility is accepted”. If only things were so clear-cut in the world of child protection.

The recent blurring of the lines over Professor Meadow have weakened accountability but not abolished it. Angela Cannings and Sally Clark would still have their convictions quashed. But there are many other parents professing their innocence who have never ascended to High Court niceties. They are still stuck beneath the glass ceiling of the Family Division. It is a one-way glass: they can see out, but no one else can see in. To whom do they turn?

I was talking recently to a mother who was accused of satanic abuse as part of the Western Isles case two years ago — long after the whole notion had been denounced as a myth by a government inquiry. Her husband was charged with offences against children he had not seen for many years. He was not allowed to see his own children for a year, even to telephone them for months, and was told that if he returned home the children would be taken away. This woman has evidence that the social worker involved spent several years trying to trump up charges, all of which were proved false. But her complaints are still doing the rounds of agencies in Scotland, while the social worker continues to work and organisations purporting to support satanic abuse “survivors” receive government grants.

This is a familiar story. In England parents who complain find that the ball always seems to bounce back to the social services department they are complaining about. Each seems to have a different internal procedure. Some minor complaints are sometimes upheld and filed away in personnel files; others can inspire quite aggressive reactions. William Bache, a solicitor who acts for many parents accused of child abuse, believes that too many child abuse allegations are made after parents have complained about a service. “And with hospitals, one is left with the uneasy feeling that some accusations are made to pre-empt an allegation of negligence.” This is another dimension: doctors can put social workers under pressure to make snap decisions on cases they do not fully understand if a child comes in with head injuries or breathing difficulties.

The great conundrum about the world of child protection is that so many people seem desperate to cover their backs, when so few ever face any sanction for making mistakes. It is hard to find an equivalent to the suspension of those four probation officers.

After the Clark ruling, the Government announced a review of 28,866 Family Division cases where children had been removed from their parents following accusations of harm. The review took less than nine months: the local authorities that were asked to review their cases responded rapidly. Fewer than 20 cases were reopened — resulting in another hard-to-believe statistical ratio. Did this really prove that the system works? Or that those bodies knew that they would lose their insurance if they admitted liability?

The system is in turmoil. The restructuring of Cafcass (the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) has led to waves of experienced practitioners leaving. Some have become self-employed and are trying to instil commonsense from the outside. Many of those that remain are desperately inexperienced. The Victoria Climbié tragedy has struck fear into every heart.

One of the most telling glimpses in Lord Laming’s Climbié report was the excuse of one of the doctors who saw the girl several times but failed to notice the horrific signs of abuse that eventually killed her. She was “working very hard chasing bits of information about three potential cases of Munchausen’s”. No doubt that doctor was acting in good faith to prove Sir Roy Meadow’s pet theory. But is good faith enough?