MEDICAL PRACTITIONER — Fitness to Practice Panel — Procedure — Finding of serious professional misconduct — Practitioner giving mistaken but honest expert evidence in court — Whether witness’s immunity from suit extending to disciplinary proceedings

Meadow v General Medical Council [2006] EWHC 146 (Admin)

QBD: Collins J: 17 February 2006

Expert evidence given honestly and in good faith in a court of law would not normally merit a referral to the relevant professional disciplinary body.

Collins J so held when allowing the appeal of Professor Sir Roy Meadow against the finding of serious professional misconduct made against him by the Fitness to Practise Panel of the General Medical Council and its order that his name be erased from the register.

COLLINS J said that Professor Meadow was an eminent paediatrician. In 1998 he provided a medical opinion in the trial of Sally Clark in which she was convicted of the murder of two of her children. Following a referral to the Court of Appeal an appeal against those convictions was allowed. Complaint was made to the Council against Professor Meadow and the Fitness to Practise Panel found serious professional misconduct proved and ordered that his name be erased from the register. The immunity from suit of a witness in respect of evidence given in a court of law had not been extended to prevent the bringing of disciplinary proceedings. There was clear evidence that the possibility of disciplinary proceedings based on a complaint by someone affected by the evidence given had a serious deterrent effect. It was in those circumstances difficult to follow why the public policy based on the need to protect the administration of justice should not prevent disciplinary proceedings. The rationale behind the rule that a witness should not be exposed to the risk of having his or her evidence challenged in another process showed that not only was there no reason in principle why it should not apply to disciplinary proceedings but every reason why it should so apply. The immunity had to cover proceedings based on a complaint (whether or not it alleged bad faith or dishonesty) made by a party or any other person who may have been upset by the evidence given. Public policy required at least that. But there was no reason why the judge before whom the expert gave evidence should not refer his conduct to the relevant disciplinary body if satisfied that his conduct had fallen so far below what was expected of him as to merit some disciplinary action. Such a referral would not be justified unless the witness’s shortcomings were sufficiently serious for the judge to believe that he might need to be removed from practice or at least to be subjected to conditions regulating his practice such as a prohibition on acting as an expert witness. Normally, evidence given honestly and in good faith would not merit a referral. There was no doubt that the complaint against Professor Meadow should not have been pursued. Since it was based upon his evidence in court, he had immunity. It followed that the appeal against the finding of serious professional misconduct must be allowed since the Panel should not have considered the complaint. On the assumption that the Panel had been entitled to consider the complaint, it was difficult to think that the giving of honest albeit mistaken evidence could save in an exceptional case properly lead to a finding of serious professional misconduct. No more than the imposition of a condition not to engage in medico-legal work would have been appropriate, and in truth, the finding itself would have been sufficient.

Appearances: Nicola Davies QC and Ian Winter (Hempsons) for Professor Meadow; Roger Henderson QC and Adam Heppinstall (General Medical Council) for the General Medical Council.

Reported by: Ben Urdang, barrister