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Another woman acquitted despite medical harrassment
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/6088686.stm
I can't begin to say how pleased I am that this woman has been able to clear her name fully in the legal system, and I hope she can now move on from this terrible episode and rebuild her life.
Yet again, though, it raises some serious questions about the medical profession, and how quick they are to scream murder in tragic circumstances. Yet another young woman has been dragged to hell and back by vindictive and incompetent medical staff- not only does she lose her child, but then she has to fight to prove that she didn't kill her child in the face of huge medical professional opinion.
The medics who came to this conclusion should now face serious disciplinary action for what they have done to this woman, it is completely unacceptable. Medics seem far too quick to claim murder when these things just happen; just because they all want to play God doesn't mean that everyone else does.
It scares me how the medical profession have so much power, and how they can say things against innocent people without any comeback. Roy Meadow was put back onto the medical register despite his disgusting actions in destroying the lives of several young women, and now this. Luckily this woman could prove it, but what if she couldn't? There's no comeback against the liars and the incompetents that put her in this position.
Medical experts should become responsible for their testimony, and those who are found to be liars or incompetent should face the strongest and most serious levels of punishment. The police officers and CPS lawyers who went for prosecution should face serious disciplinary action. If, as usual, the police interviewed her as if she was guilty already, the police officers in question should be immediately sacked.
I can't begin to say how pleased I am that this woman has been able to clear her name fully in the legal system, and I hope she can now move on from this terrible episode and rebuild her life.
Yet again, though, it raises some serious questions about the medical profession, and how quick they are to scream murder in tragic circumstances. Yet another young woman has been dragged to hell and back by vindictive and incompetent medical staff- not only does she lose her child, but then she has to fight to prove that she didn't kill her child in the face of huge medical professional opinion.
The medics who came to this conclusion should now face serious disciplinary action for what they have done to this woman, it is completely unacceptable. Medics seem far too quick to claim murder when these things just happen; just because they all want to play God doesn't mean that everyone else does.
It scares me how the medical profession have so much power, and how they can say things against innocent people without any comeback. Roy Meadow was put back onto the medical register despite his disgusting actions in destroying the lives of several young women, and now this. Luckily this woman could prove it, but what if she couldn't? There's no comeback against the liars and the incompetents that put her in this position.
Medical experts should become responsible for their testimony, and those who are found to be liars or incompetent should face the strongest and most serious levels of punishment. The police officers and CPS lawyers who went for prosecution should face serious disciplinary action. If, as usual, the police interviewed her as if she was guilty already, the police officers in question should be immediately sacked.
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Comments
At the end of the day, a judge and jury found her not guilty, those are the ones who make the decision. It is not for doctors to say she did or she didn't, only to the best of their knowledge what they think was the cause.
Going for retribution is a dangerous line, as it could discourage people from reporting what they think are suspicious circumstances which could leave the vulnerable at risk.
What is harsh in this case is the length of time taken to get to her acquittal, 2.5 years is ridiculous. There isn't a lot of evidence to gather in such cases and they should be brought to court fast for everyones benefit.
Glad to hear the lady has been cleared, a nightmare situation for her that no one should have to go through.
Doing it to the best of your ability isn't enough if it results in this.
People who make mistakes of this magnitude should be made responsible for their actions.
It isn't retribution, its making people responsible for what they do.
If the firm I worked for fucked up to this magnitude it would be liable for millions of pounds in compensation- why should it be any different for doctors?
For a murder trial two years is about the going rate.
What scares me is how much power one or two doctors have over people. Look at Meadow, look at how his lies destroyed the lives of all those women. Look at how long it took them to put it right. It's so hard for people to defend themselves against incompetence of this magnitude, and its about time doctors became responsible for their mistakes.
The doctor in question, the police and the CPS owe this woman at lot of money in compensation for her distress, but as the law stands they can do this to an innocent woman and then walk away as if nothing ever happened. In what way, exactly, is that morally right?
But what that shows is that doctors don't have a clue what they are doing.
As for the GPs, if they can't do that, what on earth are we paying them £250,000 a year each for?
You have no idea how many people mention that figure to GPs without realising that it was just one GP in the whole country who earned that. It so pisses them off - especially when you consider that the majority will earn less than half that figure.
It's also amazing at how often people refer to medical negligence without the recognition that it's not always an exact science, with many different conditions sharing similar symptoms. NB Meadows knew that there was another possible explanation, that statistically it was just as possible and therefore his negligence was clear to most. In this case (and that of child abuse) there is the raraty factor to take into consideration. You should also consider that it may be just a single occasion in a doctor's career that they are faced with something like this and you cannot expect them to keep obscure symptoms at the forefront of their knowledge for the entire 50 years (or so) betwen training at their career end.
The legal profession, in particular, needs to accept that it's often a matter of opinion - that something like meningitis can be easily confused with flu, that a broken bone can appear just like a normal bone abnormality (or even be masked by one) or that it is not possible to be 100% correct 100% of the time. It also needs to remember that in any legal case there are always two viewpoints being argued and that the "truth" doesn't always win out - should we condemn the lawyer who defends a case where the criminal is clearly guilty or even those where they have been found guilty? Of course not, lawyer are allowed to be wrong, to argue the inccorect point. Difference with GPs is that when they are wrong people can pay with thier lives - especially when we subsequently also quibble of the amount of money we pay them for accepting that kind of pressure.
Instead of slagging a doctor, shouldn't we be lauding the criminal justice system here?
It's up to the doctors to report their concerns and offer their professional judgement. It is then up to the courts, the CPS and the lawyers to look at the standing medical knowledge and opinions and make their decisions from there.
As for this actual case, unfortunately the Law sees the medical profession as people who are on a par with themselves- We're trying to help people, so are they. I do agree that perhaps if it is decided the medical testimonies are erroneous, said testimonies should be investigated further, but that then affects the delay issue- if the legal service is busy investigating every testimony that was then deemed untrue, the wait for someone's trial would be even longer. Something of a catch 22, i believe.
most professionals can get away with saying anything and highlight it as 'their professional opinion', which is why they cannot be found to be liars, opinions can change and they never state their opinion as truth, although many people tend to take it as such.
Surely then the criticism should be of those who take it as such rather than those who state their opinion (unless of course there is no evidence what so ever for their opinion).
Oh, I know it was an exception rather than the rule, but its a nice number anyway.
Of course the GPs have seen their workload halved and their salary doubled in the last three years, and as such we now have the fiasco that it is the Out of Hours Doctors Service. Perhaps that what "reform" means- paying more for less.
My problem is not the salary of the GP, but rather the way in which the GP's salary has shot up, but the hardest part of his job has been removed. Whilst GP services cost much more, service provision has gone down. Out-of-hours doctors for Northumberland are based in Newcastle- that's great if you live in Berwick, which is only 80 miles from Newcastle. You wait three or four hours to get a doctor to your house, when the local GP is safely tucked up in bed 10 miles away with his increased salary.
I quite agree.
But unless you are sure that a child has been poisoned by its mother, then you should keep your trap shut.
Especially as, during cross-examination, the doctor in this case admitted that there was a good chance it was either accidental or one of those things, and that the mother had shown no previous signs of "cracking up" or of being abusive to her child- either in the hospital or on one of the countless home visits.
Mistakes happen, and reasonable mistakes should not be punished. Confusing two symptoms that look the same is unfortunate, but its easy to do, and there should be no comeback on the doctor for that.
I don't think anyone can say this was a reasonable mistake, though. This case is comparable to Meadows and his lies.
I quite agree again, which is why you will often find two medical experts coming to completely different conclusions in cases. I've seen it before in my line of work. But that's no better, really, as you end up with a medical pissing contest- its great entertainment, I suppose.
That's not really a comparable point, to be fair, as a lawyer will only say what his client tells him to say. A lawyer who lies to the court- for instance, by saying someone isn't guilty when he's just admitted it in the cells- should be condemned.
In this instance the correct decision was made, but what about the woman who has had her entire life destroyed by this doctor? Isn't she entitled to more than platitudes?
But on a different day, with a different jury, would the doctor's half-truths and rushed conclusions have won? Would we now see- like we've seen with Clark and countless others- a woman lying in jail for life when she is completely innocent?
People trust doctors, and it is high time that they started repaying that faith. When a doctor starts claiming murder and abuse it is a serious allegation- don't you think he should be sure before he does it? Admitting that an accident could have happened, and admitting that there was no previous sign of abuse or trouble, is a bit late when its done in a murder trial.
If someone of serious medical reputation is claiming something, it is right that people listen to him. That is why that if that person is not sure, or mistaken, steps should be taken to discipline him. In any other profession a mistake of this magnitude would result in instant dismissal- I'm not calling for that, but the people who did this should be made responsible for their actions, their "opinions", and the consequences of both.
Two years is about the right amount of time, from arrest to trial result, for a complex case involving complex medical arguments. It takes time to prepare a case of this magnitude, it takes time to prepare the medical knowledge, it takes time to prepare the client instructions. These things should not be rushed- the defence don't generally deliberately hold things up, its that delays are inevitable, mostly because of the incompetence rife in the CPS.
The Community Legal Services' "reforms" are a gigantic pile of shit, and will actually prevent justice being served in many cases. The "reforms" will basically mean that defence lawyers will have to tender for these cases, and if it over-runs, well, tough shit- they take the financial hit. Quite often it is the CPS and the police who fail to get the case to a trial-ready state in the quickest time, both have a nice habit of releasing new information and evidence days or even hours before court dates. The Government obviously then blames the defence for not proceeding- why should a defendant have to defend something he only saw ten minutes before his court date?
As for the court costs- they are not desirable, but cost-cutting in this area means justice will not be served. Most of the legal aid budget goes on the top 5%-10% of cases- usually complex fraud cases- and that is what happens when you have a long and complex case involving many defendants and many witnesses. It often takes regulators years to notice a fraud, so why do you think it should take weeks to prepare the case to trial level?
Instead of accepting that justice costs money, the Government tries to attack defence lawyers, none of whom make a huge amount of money. Sure, a top defence barrister will earn £250,000 a year- but that's about £50,000 less than a partner in the provincial law firm that I work for, and probably going on for £500,000 less than a partner in a top magic circle firm.
Great. Super Plan.
:banghead:
If a parent has shown no previous signs of abuse, and the child has shown no previous signs of abuse, then I'd say its a fairly safe assumption that no abuse has taken place. It's certainly not on to start claiming that the child was murdered, is it?
Suspicions should still be reported, but there should be some strong evidence of it before the police start getting called and the parents start getting charged with murder, don't you think?
or do you think its acceptable that a doctor can come out and spout shit about murder, and then only retract it under intensive cross-examination during a murder trial? Don't you think the doctor should perhaps have acknowledged that there was no previous signs of abuse, and that an accident very well could have happened, long before it got to that stage?
If there is a justifiable cause for concern then the relevant authorities should be put on notice, but to go from that to murder trials is preposterous.
I think what the doctor did is fine, how the police, CPS and media handled it however may not have been.