who has spent a large part of their career and research work investigating this very problem and had done some of the key work in this area. In this field if you are going to make allegations that a father or mother has suffocated their baby you have got to be pretty certain. Because it is such a serious allegation, your evidence has got to be very strong before you consider making it.”
At the time that Professor Southall contacted police in 2000, Mrs Clark was serving a double life sentence for murdering their sons, Christopher and Harry. The solicitor, 39, was freed on appeal last year.
Not a trace of doubt; not a hint of an apology. On the basis of a TV programme the man has the arrogance to ring the police and suggest that the father was a murderer and that their remaining child should be taken into care.
Professor Southall told the hearing that after raising his initial concerns with police he contacted two of the paediatric experts involved in Mrs Clark’s trial, Sir Roy Meadow and Professor Michael Green, to ask their opinion. “I told Professor Green I was incredibly worried about (the Clark’s surviving baby and please could he do something about this,” Professor Southall told the hearing. “He also became concerned. He was very shaken.” The hearing continues.
Professor Southall is already the subject of complaints about his methods of secretly filming parents he suspected of child abuse. And Sir Roy Meadow’s reputation is effectively in tatters “after courts overturned three murder convictions against mothers jailed on the basis of his expert evidence.”
Both Southall and Meadow are keen proponents of – “experts on”, as they would have you believe – Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy.
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