Medical experts lose immunity

Medical experts giving evidence in a trial can be disciplined by their regulatory body, the Court of Appeal ruled today.

An appeal was launched by the General Medical Council (GMC) with the support of the attorney general Lord Goldsmith after the High Court ruled that former paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow should not have been struck off the register for giving mistaken evidence that helped convict Sally Clark of murdering her two children.

The GMC argued that the ruling had left it “toothless” in disciplining medical professionals.

But the appeal judges ruled today that the GMC should be allowed to use its statutory powers.

Finley Scott, chief executive of the GMC, said that he was “very pleased” with the decision.

“This appeal was about protecting the public interest,” he said.

“The public must be confident that doctors and other professionals, who give evidence in court proceedings, can, if necessary, be held to account by their regulator. We did not accept that the GMC should be prevented from using its statutory powers when we judge it to be necessary.”

He added that the ruling enabled the GMC to “protect the public when a doctor has fallen significantly below acceptable standards”.

Although he acknowledged that doctors should not be “deterred from giving evidence honestly and truthfully, and within their competence”, he added that “the GMC did not believe that the solution lay in extending the principle of immunity in a way that placed doctors and other professionals beyond the reach of their regulator”.

However, the three Court of Appeal judges also ruled that they agreed with the High Court decision that Sir Roy was not guilty of professional misconduct.

Speaking outside the court, Sir Roy thanked his legal team and said: “I’m glad that the Court of Appeal has agreed with the previous High Court judgement that my evidence which I gave in the course of the trial of Mrs Clark nearly seven years ago was not an example of serious professional misconduct and that the GMC was wrong in its judgement of me.”