The many tragedies of Sally Clark

Hi,

This is an open letter to Prof Hamblin who has blocked replies at his blog and has altered the original URL so that it returns an error 404 page. This is the new URL . . . http://mutated-unmuated.blogspot.com/2007/03/sally-clarks-death-preventable -tragedy.html . . .

Professor Hamblin,

Your erroneous original thoughts still stand here. Yes, the Internet is a big place, but not for an 8-year old grieving boy whose name is on your blog.

I actually have more respect for Roy Meadows who has maintained a respectful silence (who carried out his job to the best of his ability, armed with the technology at the time) than I have for you, a person armed with hindsight who says:

“Perhaps Clark was possessed by guilt that she really had killed her kids.”

One of her babies died of a staph infection. How do you justify this argument, which you posted 24 hours after her death? How can she kill her baby by staph? You and I are both armed with hindsight.

One of these “kids” is an 8-year-old boy who is likely to be reading your message.

You also say: "Sally Clark has died in suspicious circumstances."

As a medical professional, how can you suggest these are the circumstances 48 hours before a post mortem?

OK, I accept this is doctor’s jargon for “sudden death” but to the layperson (including an 8-year old boy) this means foul play or murder. How would you explain that supposition to the other occupant of her house when he reads this message at your blog?

If I were you and I chose to leave the original post here indefinitely, I would be looking at compensating this little boy in monetary terms. I think you should admit your error by sending this boy (the deceased's son) a cheque for an amount no less than £100,000 as compensation in the event he reads these inaccurate and malicious slurs against his late mother.

Regards, Coral

UPDATE . . http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6465525.stm . . "...An inquest heard that she probably died of natural causes but more tests were needed to find a definitive cause. "

Regards, Coral

I suspect from the tone of your writing that you may be interested in things as they are, rather than as how you might want them or imagine them.

Sally Clark was not convicted of murder because of the imputed malpractise of a distinguished doctor but because it appeared highly likely to the jury and numerous other medical witnesses that two children dying suddenly whilst awake and well, both with evidence of suffocation at post mortem, and one with multiple and extensive injuries including fractured and dislocated ribs and bleeding into the skin, brain and spine fitted best with the idea that they may have been murdered.

They were not,by definition, 'cot deaths' and the figures quoted for the risk of two such deaths were irrelevent to the case and had nothing to do with the conviction nor the release of Sally Clark.

It was the finding of missing path reports that were vital because clever barristers who are interested in winning cases not the truth were able to suggest that there may have been a possibility that Harry had died of a fulminating Staphyloccocal septicaemia with no clinical or tissue evidence of such an infection, a diagnosis that only the medically dangerous could make but enough to satisfy the untutored clinicians on the Bench.

Meadow is a highly competent doctor who has saved many lives both in his practise and in the warnings he gave to paediatricians world wide that mothers harm and kill their children.

We abuse our children, abort them when it doesn't suit,crush their heads at the moment of birth and pretend in self regarding fantasy that mothers don't kill.

We kill children with our sanctimonious ignorance and venomous slander.

Don't be a party to it.

Dear Doctor,

I would suppose the other related cases where the expert evidence of Professor Sir Roy Meadow make the judgments suspect do not have bearing of the fact that the professor's are of expertise has a whiff voodoo science.

The professor is no doubt respected and worthy of followership by other doctors and apologists that seek his mentorship, but he is not infallible by reason of his abilities and you are not objective in your allusions.

One would keep a wide berth off you in the circumstances. My tone is clear, experts should understand their responsibilities and truthful peer-reviewed observation should have precedence over reputation and theories, especially in areas where the siad expert has no expertise - in this case, statistics.

Read the reports of the case notes again and see how the professor was central to how each jury was swayed to deliver their verdicts. If you did take the Hippocratic oath, I wonder which part gives you angst.

I am not aware of any other cases in which the evidence of Meadow was found to be flawed although the lawyers will seize on any case in which he appeared as a device not to explore the truth but to release their clients.

My argument is predicated on meticulous objectivity and I will apologise if my facts are erroneous. I say it again, the statistics had no bearing on the case at hand.They were figures produced by statisticians.

They may well turn out to be nearer the truth than realised because over ten years I haven't found a single case of two "cot deaths' in an affluent family.

Doctors don't take the Hippocratic Oath and the only angst I feel is for the dead babies who have no advocate.

Dear Doctor,

I apologise, I did not realise your Dr was academic rather than medical.

Anyway, going beyond the courts, the professor appeared before his medical peers and he was struck off by the GMC, the crux of his failings predicated on the quality of evidence he presented on the Sally Clark case and other areas where he gave this flawed kind of evidence, allegedly.

He had to go to the courts to get his licence reinstated, the premise is simple, if as a professional you cannot garner the respect of your peers on a matter as serious of this, resorting to lawyers to restore your reputation cannot entirely restore your status amongst your peers.

This is what the GMC said of Professor Sir Roy Meadow when he was struck off "he had acted beyond the limits of his expertise and abused his position as a doctor in giving erroneous and misleading statistical evidence at Mrs Clark's trial about the likelihood of two cot deaths in one family" GMC case by BMJ

Dead babies do need advocacy, but not in the view to punish an unfortunate circumstance where additional evidence debunked the so-called celebrated theories of a famous professor.

The courts did say the professor was in some ways unfairly treated by the press, but as someone who extended himself beyond his professional remit, I have no sympathy.

Now, are you going to tell me from the earlier statement that the statistics had no bearing on the case or not?

All other issues are covered in my original post.

Thanks for your time.

Dear Akin,

You have no need to apologise for you were right the first time, my title is a courtesy one bestowed on members of the medical profession unless they prefer the challenges of the theatre and become Fellows of the Royal College that prefers that they abandon it and revert to plain Mister. Odd, isn't it? We don't take any oaths, Hippocratic or otherwise.

I certainly am going to say that the tiny part of the trial that discussed figures was not in any way instrumental in influencing the Jury (unless you are of the opinion that they were insufficiently intelligent to appreciate what they had been told by the Judge).

We will never know without asking them all but once again remember that we are not discussing 'cot deaths' and it's cot deaths that the statistics alluded to.

That Meadow should have been taken before the GMC was described by the Appeal judge as bordering on the irrational and it has become one of the major reasons that the Medical Profession despises it and hopes for its dissolution.

This is what I wrote to them: May I convey to you my distress that the GMC should have thought it appropriate to strike from the Register the distinguished Physician Professor Sir Roy Meadow whose life has been lived in the care of the most vulnerable of our patients the sick child, so placing him with the occasional charlatans and incompetents that are the inevitable detritus of an otherwise noble profession.

One wonders at the competence of those that have sat so disgracefully in judgement of one who has undoubtedly been the saviour of many a threatened child and one wonders whether the inevitable deaths that will follow as fewer doctors expose themselves to the risks of media vilification and predatory litigation will arouse in them the feelings of guilt that are the determinants of a proper moral life.

We have already seen a decline in paediatric pathology following the absurd reaction to the Alder Hay story and babies will die unprotected following your committee’s judgement.

A disgraceful decision. Deeply shameful.

There were many such letters. Sally Clark's conviction was because the Jury thought she had killed her children. Her release was determined by the introduction of clinically unsound evidence that babies who are well might die in ten minutes with no signs of infection.

Doctors treat patients not laboratory results. This child did not die of staphylococcal septicaemia.

Kind regards.

What kind of professional Doctor uses this kind of language. Dr. D. has posted into this website and he posts from a multitude of different proxy servers.

http://devilskitchen.me.uk/2007/03/song-for-sally-clark.html