A leading British paediatrician who testified at the trials of several women wrongly convicted of murdering their babies was banned today from practicing as a doctor because he gave "misleading" evidence.
The General Medical Council (GMC) found Professor Sir Roy Meadow guilty of serious professional misconduct and struck his name from the medical register.
He has 28 days to appeal. Dr 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.
"You are an eminent paediatrician whose reputation was renowned throughout the world, and so your eminence and authority carried with it a unique responsibility to take meticulous care," the GMC said.
The panel said his interpretation of statistics may have "seriously undermined the authority of doctors giving expert evidence."
The father of Sally Clarke, who brought the case, told reporters after the judgment he hoped he and his family would be able to put the last seven years of "hell" behind them.
An emotional Frank Lockyer said the ruling showed the current system of expert witnesses needed to be reviewed. "The GMC has applied the ultimate sanction to the doctor who played such a huge part in my daughter's conviction," said Lockyer who was close to tears.
"I think he deserved to be taken off the medical register for what he did for my daughter." Ms Cannings told BBC television it was "fantastic" Meadow had been banned and called for him to apologise.
The GMC considered evidence he gave at the 1999 trial of Ms Clark, a solicitor accused of killing her two sons, Christopher and Harry. She was found guilty of murder, but freed by the Court of Appeal in 2003.
Dr Meadow had argued at the trial that 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.
A GMC panel on Wednesday concluded Meadow's evidence at Clark's trial was both "erroneous" and "misleading". However, it found that Meadow had not intended to mislead in the evidence he gave.
PA