Southall To Have Previous Cases Reviewed

A consultant paediatrician who was found guilty of serious professional misconduct for falsely accusing a man of murdering his sons is to be investigated for possible non-disclosure of evidence in criminal trials, the Attorney General has announced. Lord Goldsmith told Parliament that he would be reviewing the cases in which Prof David Southall was a prosecution witness.

{mosimage}Prof Southall was suspended from child protection work for three years in 2004 for wrongly accusing Stephen Clark of killing his children on the strength of a television documentary. Mr Clark’s wife, Sally, a solicitor, had been wrongly convicted of killing her sons and freed on appeal.

Prof Southall is currently facing a hearing before a General Medical Council ‘fitness to practise’ panel on a separate matter. He is alleged to have kept about 4,450 “special” case files on children which were not stored on the child’s proper hospital file.

Lord Goldsmith’s spokesman said there were concerns that proper disclosure of medical records may not have been made in cases that led to a prosecution. The review will go back more than 10 years and will examine all 4,450 “special” files created by Prof Southall, who practised from London’s Royal Brompton Hospital and North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary in Stoke-on-Trent.

The Attorney General said in a written ministerial statement to the House of Lords: “It is said that Prof Southall kept so-called ‘special case’ files containing original medical records relating to his patients that were not also kept on the child’s proper hospital file. Concerns have been raised that in some of those cases criminal proceedings may have been taken but the existence of the files not revealed, resulting in their not being disclosed as part of the prosecution process. I share those concerns.

He added: “What is not clear at this stage is the nature and extent of the failure of disclosure, if such it be. I have therefore decided that I will conduct an assessment of the cases where Prof Southall was instructed as a prosecution witness to determine if any ‘special case’ files existed in any cases involving criminal proceedings. Once that assessment has been completed, I will decide what, if any, further review is required.”

However, previous work has already shown that Prof Southall appeared as a witness in cases of sudden infant death. Doctors engaged as prosecution witnesses are obliged to reveal all their material to defence lawyers, including an index of any unused material.

In the current General Medical Council case, Prof Southall is accused of 18 charges of tampering with medical records, keeping secret medical files and abusing his position in relation to four children. He denies serious professional misconduct.

At a hearing last November, one mother said Prof Southall had accused her of drugging and hanging her 10-year-old son and then reported her to the police, despite having no evidence to indicate foul play.

The mother, identified only as Mrs M, told a disciplinary panel the doctor had used a “very aggressive and sarcastic” tone when questioning her about the death. Her son, known as M1, died after he fastened a belt around his neck and hung it from a curtain pole in the family home in June 1996.

An inquest recorded an open verdict, saying there was nothing of evidence to state for sure whether it was intended suicide or an accident.

The GMC also heard that a mother, identified only as Mrs H, spent years trying to find information from her son’s medical file after it was moved from the Royal Brompton to the Staffordshire hospital by Prof Southall. She accused Prof Southall of treating her son, Child H, like a “lab rat”.

As a result of the family’s involvement with Prof Southall from March 1989, Child H became a ward of court, the GMC heard.

The hearing has been adjourned until November.