M.S.B.P.

was real. Those who need reminding that it is might look to the case of Maxine Robinson, one of the first cases to be reviewed. At a hearing in April, Robinson confessed that she had killed three of her children.

The larger question, then, is whether M.S.B.P. is best thought of as a disorder or simply as a criminal act. People who rob banks aren’t usually called victims of “bank robber’s syndrome,” after all, and parents who beat their children are simply called child abusers. And nobody assumes that these wrongdoers are all driven by the same set of motives—let alone by a discrete mental illness.

If M.S.B.P. is to be thought of as a criminal act rather than a disorder, and if there are no common patterns to the behaviours involved, then it’s entirely reasonable to regard the syndrome as discredited. Citing the case of Maxine Robinson in defence is surely a little too glib. Even if she did kill her children (and how reliable is her confession in the circumstances?) there’s no evidence that this fits into an observable pattern of women like her mass-murdering their offspring. And the article makes no mention of Professor Southall’s more recent problems, accusing Sally Clark’s husband of murdering their children solely on the basis of seeing him on TV, and, protected by an armour-plated conviction in his own diagnostic skills and the reality of M.S.B.P., showing absolutely no remorse. As one of the contributors at the BMJ comments:

This issue is […] that there are increasing concerns of professionals in medicine, social work, the law, researchers, academics, and parents falsely accused of child abuse, that the child protection system is deeply flawed, erratic, and dysfunctional and the child protection system is `per se’, causing severe and long-lasting harm to many thousands of children every year. On the other hand, many children are suffering harm and death because of failures to intervene appropriately and responsibly.

A major contribution to this dysfunctionalism of the child protection system is the unscientific theories espoused by a small number of paediatricians and the dogmatic, inappropriate, irresponsible, misleading presentation of their opinions and suppositions to Courts and the abuse of their professional positions, as stated by Courts and the GMC.