Families to stage court protest against 'expert witness'

Families who have had their children taken into care because of the evidence of Professor Sir Roy Meadow, the controversial "expert witness", will stage a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London today against what they claim is a continuing injustice.

Professor Meadow was the eminent paediatrician whose credibility was undermined when a jury at Reading Crown Court took just 90 minutes this month to clear Trupti Patel of murdering her three babies.

He has also been criticised for giving evidence at the trial of the solicitor Sally Clark in which he claimed the chances of both her babies dying from natural causes was 73 million to one. Mrs Clark had her two convictions for murder quashed by the Court of Appeal earlier this year which described his statistic as "manifestly wrong".

Similar cot death cases in which Professor Meadow gave evidence are being considered for review by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Now a group of families whose babies have been taken into care because of allegations of mistreatment or abuse, partly based on Professor Meadow's evidence, want their cases to be reviewed too.

Among the parents protesting outside the Royal Courts of Justice today will be Karen and Mark Haynes (not their real names). Their first child, Michael, was born in September 1998 but shortly afterwards suffered two separate apnoea attacks in which his breathing stopped. After a third attack, he was rushed to intensive care.

Karen and Mark stayed at the hospital until Michael showed obvious signs of recovery but later that evening - when Karen and Mark were at home - his condition deteriorated. Two days later his life support machine was turned off.

The Haynes suspect that their baby, who was born with a hole in his heart, suffered a heart attack, a possibility that has yet to be properly investigated. He was being treated with Cisapride, a drug which has been banned after being linked to infant deaths.

Still mourning their son, the couple decided to try for another child. Social services, concerned for the safety of the yet-to-be-born child, commissioned a report from Professor Meadow. Sir Roy's view was that Karen had smothered their baby, which she denies. When Karen's second child was born, it was taken from her after 25 minutes, partly on the say-so of Professor Meadow.

On the question of the unborn child, he stated: "In general there appears to be a one in two chance of similar or serious abuse occurring to a sibling of a child who has been smothered." The Haynes' second child, also born with a hole in its heart, has been permanently adopted.

Will and Michelle Carter (not their real names), have lost all four of their children to care, due in part to testimony from Sir Roy. Their ordeal started in January 1998 when Jane, the youngest of their children, collapsed, aged just 16 months. She was taken to hospital where she recovered but doctors said it had been a close-run thing. She had suffered a heart attack and a stroke. Social services were concerned and considered taking the baby into care. A report was commissioned from Professor Meadow. His report pointed squarely at Michelle, concluding that she probably poisoned the child. He diagnosed her as suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition he first defined, also known as "Meadow's syndrome", where mothers harm or kill their children and pass off the abuse as natural illness. The Government has since abandoned the syndrome.

A report by John Sweeney on cot-death mothers in the Family Courts will be broadcast tonight on BBC2's 'Newsnight'