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What killed Sally Clark’s child?

Neville Hodgkinson

Wednesday, 16th May 2007

Neville Hodgkinson asks why the jury in the Sally Clark trial was told to discount the DTP jab given to her second child, Harry, just five hours before he was found dead

Professor Sir Roy Meadow was first to describe MSBP. Previously held in high esteem for his work in this field, in 2005 he was struck off by the General Medical Council for giving ‘erroneous’ and ‘misleading’ evidence that helped wrongly convict Sally, and two other mothers, of killing their children. Last year he was reinstated, after an appeal to the High Court in London. Mr Justice Collins said he had acted in good faith when he gave evidence at the Clark trial, including his widely publicised claim that the probability of two cot deaths in a family such as the Clarks’ was 73 million to one. Studies suggest a more realistic figure is 64 to one. The judge said he had ‘made one mistake; it was a mistake that was easily and widely made’.

Clearly, Professor Meadow is much respected and has made a distinguished contribution to medicine. But was it really such an innocent mistake? Or was the professor — in common with his paediatric colleagues — avoiding facing up to a reality, unpleasant for professionals who have for years defended a controversial vaccine: that when a tiny baby dies five hours after being injected, a link between the two events might be more probable than that the mother was a murderer?

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