Doctor 'misrepresented' stats to convict woman

An eminent paediatrician misused statistics to help convict a mother of a double murder, a disciplinary panel has heard.

Professor Sir Roy Meadow, a child abuse expert, said in the trial of Sally Clark that the chance of two babies dying of cot death in an affluent family was one in 73 million.

But he quoted the figure out of context, in a way it was never intended to be used, the hearing before the General Medical Council was told.

Sally Clark was jailed for life for the murder of her two baby sons in 1999, but freed on appeal in 2003.

Sir Roy is charged with serious professional misconduct.

The GMC heard that the statistic was not calculated by Sir Roy, but came from a report into sudden infant deaths, known as the Cesdi Sudi study.

Peter Fleming of the University of Bristol, the chief author of the study and an expert on cot death, told the hearing that although his study contained the one in 73 million figure, it was "somewhat unreliable" because of the "extreme rarity" of double cot deaths.

"It was never intended as a real statistical estimate," he told the hearing. The true rate could range between one in 214 and one in 8500, he said.

Professor Fleming was shocked when Sally Clark's defence team informed him that the one in 73 million statistic was being used as part of the case against her, and he faxed a letter to the Clark defence team the same morning highlighting his concerns.

"I was trying to make the context of that sentence clearer," he said.

"The content of previous paragraphs made it clear we were making assumptions for it we knew were not correct."

Sir Roy was knighted on his retirement from St James' University Hospital, Leeds, in 1998. He faces being struck off the medical register if he is found guilty.

- INDEPENDENT