Sir Roy Meadows - the witchunt continues.

Sir Roy Meadows was struck off by the GMC earlier this year for giving flawed evidence at Sally Clark's 1999 trial for the murder of her sons.The High Court over-turned the decision in February and this is being appealed. Today The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith intervened to back an appeal by the General Medical Council over the case of paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadows which would protect expert witnesses.

John Batt,(pic outside Courts of Justice in the Strand today) a family friend, solicitor and who held a watching brief at the trial for Sally Calrk's father pursues Meadows but not Professor Southall who has publicly declared Sally Clark's husband a murderer, has refused an opportunity to retract this claim by the GMC - but John Batt leaves him alone. Mr Clark appears reluctant to prosecute Professor Southall for slander / defamation / libel - at least he has not raised any action against him.

This curious and virulet pursuit of Sir Roy is unprecedented and odd. The appeal succeeded not because Sir Roy Meadows provided unchallenged and flawed statistical advice but because the pathologist Dr Williams simply lied when giving evidence. This can be best explained by an extract from a review of the book that John Batt wrote about Sally Clark's Trial.

Stolen Innocence: The Story of Sally Clark by John Batt, Ebury Press 2004 ISBN 0091900700 336 pps

21/07/04 Stolen Innocence: The Story of Sally Clark Reviewed by Edward Teague

" ....Despite this, the dishonesty of the Crown Prosecuting Counsel's forensic scientists finished her off. The jury, unnamed, unknown, were truly the heroes of the case, described by the author as “…most in their teens, or early twenties, one man perhaps one woman is over 40. 3 have difficulty reading the oath. They look as if they have been beamed up to an alien planet by Scotty in Star Trek”.

It was these (to Mr John Batt) apparent simpletons, who penetrated the obfuscating fog of legal terms, medical terminology, and pedantic process. It was these 12 peers, good and true, who identified the simple clear need to answer a simple clear question. A question they framed in writing and presented to the judge. Harry died, blood samples were taken, what did they show?

Faced with this clear simple question, Dr Williams, the Home Office consultant forensic pathologist produced a simple response. He lied. Remarkably the Appeal Court judges said they discounted the possibility that Dr Williams deliberately concealed the information. Three years after Sally Clark had entered prison and her family's unbelievable anguish, enormous legal costs, and the press world wide had published photographs of Hope Cottage, their family home entitled “The Death House”, Dr Williams precipitated her release by refusing to explain himself.

....Robin Spencer QC for the Prosecution.

“My Lords, Dr Williams has decided not to appear as a witness…and the prosecution no longer seeks to uphold these convictions… The Crown does not seek a retrial”


The person who failed Sally Clark, was not Sir Roy Meadows (pic today), it was her brief Julian Bevan QC (that ornament of the Bar) renowned as a prosecutor, and his Junior John Kelsey Fry , past whose Rolls Royce minds the significance of the jury (who might have been beamed up by Scotty according to John Batt)who failed to challenge his faulty evidence, it was he who failed to follow the lead from the jury to ask what happened to the blood samples from Harry. He didn't and she spent 3 years in prison. It was another brief who led the appeal for her dismissal.

John Batt mis - directs his energetic campaign witchunt, but of course you cannot sue barristers for negligence.