Professionals Against Child Abuse

Children are the most vulnerable members of society. Sometimes the very people who are expected to protect them place them at risk. It is then that professionals who work with children have a duty to protect them. PACA believes that vulnerable children need dedicated paediatricians, nurses, social workers, teachers and the law to protect them. PACA was formed in response to high profile cases against paediatricians at the General Medical Council at which it became clear that the present regulatory systems did not protect children and were open to abuse by those who sought to discredit professionals who stood up publicly for children's rights. PACA advocates for children's rights by campaigning for regulatory organisations to be trained in child protection, for the interests of the child to be paramount, and for professionals who stand up for children to receive fair treatment.

In an interview during Saturday’s edition of the Today programme on Radio 4 (8th December 2007), Mr. Finlay Scott, Chief Executive of the General Medical Council, gave out false information about the number of doctors who have been brought before the GMC in connection with child protection cases.

Mr Scott told the interviewer, John Humphrys, that PACA had ”unfortunately created the impression that the GMC unfairly persecutes paediatricians involved in child protection work and that’s simply not borne out by the facts”.

He added: “Since I think 2004, during which time we’ve probably had five or six hundred cases before Fitness to Practise panels, only two could reasonably be said to have had any connection with child protection work.”

This is not true. PACA knows of at least five doctors who have been brought before the GMC since 2004 on charges relating to their actions in child protection cases. These are Professors Meadow and Southall and Drs Lazaro, Spender and Paterson. PACA challenges Mr Scott to issue a statement disclosing the true figure. Mr Scott also knows that three of these 5 cases involve world leaders in child protection and that through the high profile media activities that accompanied the fitness to practice hearings that most paediatricians who have admired and been led by these doctors will have been severely discouraged and worried by the very fact that they reached full hearings let alone by the erasure from the register that followed for Professors Meadow and Southall

It is also disingenuous of Mr Scott to create the impression that paediatricians’ concerns are based solely on the number of complaints that have reached the panel stage. He knows full well that it was the GMC’s decision not only to bring the recently heard charges against David Southall but to produce such a perverse finding with draconian sanctions that has undermined the confidence of doctors working in child protection.

Child-protection work invariably means raising uncomfortable suspicions about parents. Some of these suspicions will prove well founded, some will not. To ensure doctors will not hesitate to raise such concerns, providing they have raised them in good faith they are immune to legal action taken by aggrieved parents. The GMC has unilaterally rendered this immunity meaningless by replacing the threat of legal action with the even greater threat of the loss of livelihood.

Released: 4th December 2007

Writer: Dr Patricia Hamilton, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

Published at: RCPCH
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) is saddened and disappointed to learn of this judgment. David Southall has made a major contribution to child health both nationally and internationally and has been a strong advocate for children during a distinguished career.

Sadly there are circumstances where parents may have harmed their children, and in these situations health professionals have a statutory duty to act on their concerns and look after the best interests of the child. This is clearly defined in the Government’s document ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’.

We are very concerned that paediatricians and social workers will be deterred from undertaking child protection work, and that children and young people may come to harm.

Dr Patricia Hamilton, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

Released: 4th December 2007

Writer: Dr Evan Harris MP

Dr Evan Harris MP, who has been supporting Dr Southall (and before him Prof Roy Meadow) against a campaign of vilification by campaign groups, and defending paediatricians who perform child protection work, said:

“In the light of the GMC finding that Dr Southall accused a grieving mother (Mrs M) of murdering her son (M1) during an interview on 27th April 1998 undertaken as part of child care proceedings, I am not surprised that the GMC has decided that it was Serious Professional Misconduct and has struck him off.”

“To erase Dr Southall from the Medical Register is still disproportionate to the alleged offence but the real problem here is how the GMC could possibly have found that that charge was proved beyond reasonable doubt when it was the word of two experienced professionals that it had not happened against that of a woman who clearly had antipathy towards Dr Southall.”

“This verdict is a serious miscarriage of justice and has major implications for the security of paediatricians doing vital and difficult child protection work, and who now cannot rely on the presence of a chaperone or 3rd party witness to defend themselves against potentially false or malicious charges, which occur in abundance in this fraught area.”

“The planned reduction of the burden of proof to the civil standard (balance of probabilities) would make matters even worse”
“The interests of children who are at risk requires paediatricians to be willing to come forward and the failure of the Government and the authorities to stem the campaign against child protection paediatricians is a scandal in itself which has real implications for child welfare.”

Dr Evan Harris MP

Released: 4/12/2007

Dr Southall has been a courageous defender of abused children and it is his dedication to that cause that has made him a high-profile target for a group of activists working on behalf of parents accused of child abuse.

Today’s decision, a victory for this group, is utterly perverse and we condemn it unreservedly, not only because we believe it represents a grotesque miscarriage of justice but also because it sends out a simple message to any doctor so much as thinking about engaging in child protection: ‘Don’t bother. It isn’t worth it; you will lose your livelihood.’ I needn’t spell out where that leaves abused children.

Dr Southall was found guilty of accusing a mother of murder nine years ago. He says he did not and it was up to the GMC to prove that he did. They proved no such thing. Instead, they chose to believe the uncorroborated evidence of a naturally aggrieved mother and to reject Dr Southall’s version of events, even though it was endorsed by the evidence of the senior social worker who had sat through the interview in question.

Paediatricians are disgusted and disillusioned and if the government doesn’t sit up and take notice of what is going on in this country I fear for the future of child protection

Professionals Against Child Abuse (PACA)