5 December, 2007

Destructive British doctor guilty a SECOND time

A leading British pediatrician was struck off the medical register on Tuesday after wrongly accusing an Adelaide woman of her son's murder. The General Medical Council (GMC) found David Southall, who was regarded as one of Britain's leading child protection experts, guilty of serious professional misconduct. The GMC found Dr Southall added to the distress of Mandy Morris, whose 10-year-old son, Lee, hanged himself at home in Shropshire, England, in 1996.

Dr Southall claimed Mrs Morris - identified only as Mrs M when she gave video evidence against him from her new home in Adelaide last month - had drugged and murdered the boy. He made the allegations during an interview with her about the safety of her surviving son.

During proceedings, GMC panel chairwoman Jacqueline Mitton told Dr Southall: "Although Mrs M was not your patient, your action in accusing her of drugging and murdering Child M1 [her son] by hanging him was inappropriate, added to her distress and was in the circumstances an abuse of your professional position."

Mrs Morris has begun a new life in Australia. She waived her anonymity in a recent interview with the website of Britain's Evening Standard newspaper, thisislondon.co.uk, in which she said Dr Southall's allegations had "ripped the heart out" of her family.

It is the second time in three years Dr Southall has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct. In 2004, he was suspended from child protection work over his role in the case of Sally Clark, who was wrongly jailed over the death of her two sons. Mrs Clark was cleared on appeal in 2003 after serving four years in prison. She died earlier this year. Dr Southall wrongly accused Mrs Clark's husband, Steve, of murdering the two boys on the basis of a television interview.

Dr Mitton said Dr Southall had "attitudinal problems". "Your multiple failings over an extended period caused the panel great concern," Dr Mitton said on Tuesday. "Furthermore, the panel is influenced by the fact that, although the events in the current case predate those in the Clark case, there are now two instances where, without justification, you have accused a parent of murdering their child." In a brief statement, Dr Southall said he was taking legal advice about the prospect of launching an appeal.

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Australia: Crooked corruption-fighter?

Lawyers pushing a $3.5 million compensation bid against the Carpenter Government have accused Western Australia's top corruption fighter of withholding evidence that could have cleared an itinerant Aboriginal woman of murdering her stepmother 18 years ago. The role of Len Roberts-Smith, now the head of the Corruption and Crime Commission but the Crown prosecutor in the 1989 murder trial of Jeanie Angel, is central to a compensation claim being considered by Attorney-General Jim McGinty.

Ms Angel, now 47, was charged, convicted, then subsequently cleared of murdering Jean Richards in South Hedland, 1300km north of Perth, in March 1989. While serving a life sentence at Bandyup Women's Prison in Perth, her three-year-old son, Wayne, died of a brain infection in Princes Margaret Hospital. Three Aboriginal women received tribal punishment for the crime after Ms Angel's 1991 acquittal by the Court of Criminal Appeal, but no one has been charged over the murder or the police investigation. Successive governments have refused to apologise or compensate her for the 902 days she spent in jail.

Ms Angel's lawyer, Geraldton barrister George Giudice, says in his submission to Mr McGinty that the miscarriage of justice was comparable to such high-profile cases as Lindy Chamberlain, Tim Anderson and John Button, yet authorities had been unwilling to confront the injustice for almost two decades. He said a litany of lies, police verballing, incompetence by various departments and plain mean-spiritedness had dogged Ms Angel, who had never recovered from the ordeal, particularly the death of her son, for which she blamed herself. He hoped the Labor Government, which had always been sympathetic to Ms Angel's cause, could come up with a fair and reasonable payment.

The compensation document, obtained by The Australian, also urges Mr McGinty to push for uniform national laws to deal with similar claims in all states. Any compensation to Ms Angel can be made only at the discretion of the Attorney-General.

Ms Angel, a full-blood Goodabinya Aboriginal from the outback Pilbara town of Marble Bar, was just 29 when convicted by an all-white jury in October 1989 of wilfully murdering Richards, the partner of her blind, elderly father. She was initially questioned by South Hedland detectives and gave them a signed statement saying that she had slapped her stepmother across the face before walking off and never seeing her again.

This statement was not accepted by police and was not led into evidence at the trial by Mr Roberts-Smith or his deputy, Lloyd Rayney, now a prominent Perth lawyer who was recently accused by West Australian police of murdering his wife, Corryn. Mr Rayney, who has not been charged, has denied any role in his wife's murder. But two subsequent and uncorroborated "confessions" - made under duress, without being properly recorded or without Ms Angel having any legal representation - were. These statements, in which an unknown white man mysteriously appears to help Ms Angel dispose of the body, were pivotal in police securing her murder conviction.

A concerted campaign by Mr Giudice over the next few years led to a parliamentary inquiry and her subsequent acquittal by the Court of Criminal Appeal in October 1991. A spokesman for Mr Roberts-Smith said he was unaware of Ms Angel's compensation claim and was unable to comment further.

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(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today)