Call for Independant Review Sunday Sun May 16th 2004
Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 4:29 pm Post subject: Todays Sunday Sun
Call for independent 'Munchausen' review May 16 200
By James Young, Sunday Sun
An independent review of cases where children have been taken into care on the potentially flawed advice of expert witnesses was yesterday demanded by the sister of Solicitor General Harriet Harman.
Lawyer Sarah Harman's call came a week after the Sunday Sun published the latest in a series of articles highlighting the plight of parents who may have been incorrectly diagnosed with Munchausen's syndrome by proxy.
MSBP is claimed to be a condition that causes people to deliberately harm their children to draw attention to themselves.
Last week we revealed how North families caught up in the MSBP fiasco, who are fighting to be reunited with their children, fear they will not get a fair hearing as social services chiefs are investigating themselves rather than initiating a review by an independent body.
Parents whose families have been torn apart - in many cases as a result of now-discredited evidence put forward by Professor Sir Roy Meadow - had hoped to get their children back in the wake of the Angela Cannings case.
Mrs Cannings, 40, was cleared of murdering two of her children when evidence from expert witnesses, including Prof Meadow, was ruled unsound last December.
Children's minister Margaret Hodge ordered a review of criminal and family court cases where expert testimony was disputed.
But on Friday the Court of Appeal said the Cannings verdict did not change the responsibilities of local authorities who take youngsters into care.
The judgment came as a mother accused of poisoning her daughter 11 times saw her appeal thrown out. The unnamed mother said: "It is just incredible that they can say the medical evidence was unsafe and yet they still think I did it."
Sarah Harman, who represented her, said social services should not be allowed to review cases where they had already made a judgment.
"Most people thought it was going to be an independent review," she said.
"Now to have social services reviewing their own cases is just not acceptable.
"You have to remember that Munchausen's syndrome by proxy diagnoses cause a great deal of acrimony and adverse feeling between local authorities and parents.
"In those circumstances it is appropriate, I believe, that there is an independent review, not a social services review."
Ms Harman said the Cannings judgment had given her "very high hopes" for the mother's failed appeal.
"We are very disappointed that the Court of Appeal seems to be saying in very clear terms that the impact of Cannings is negligible in family court decisions," she said.
"There has always been lots of argument about differing standards of proof in the criminal courts and in the family courts.
"But the general rule seems to be that the more unlikely an event, the stronger the evidence has to be to prove it in the family courts.
"Now deliberately poisoning your child is the most unlikely event. It is a horrible thought.
"So you are looking at a very unlikely event, in this case of deliberate poisoning on 11 occasions.
"Yet the evidence that the Court of Appeal accepted seems to be very, very equivocal and very, very finely balanced.
"So in that respect, from a legal point of view, we think that the Court of Appeal's decision could well be challenged."
North Labour MP and QC Vera Baird said the Court of Appeal identified five ways that the Cannings judgment should impact on family cases.
However, it also warned that "practitioners should be slow to assume" that cases would be readily reopened, she said.
"That is obviously trying to lower expectations," said the Redcar MP. "I am very worried about that."
"Medical evidence has now been pretty discredited in the criminal division.
"If that medical evidence has been determinative then we ought to be quick to reopen these cases and be looking at them again to see if there has been an injustice." |
