Mother tells how doctor made her recreate son's hanging

13 April 2012

A mother broke down in tears as she told how she felt "sick and angry" when a paediatrician falsely accused her of being a murderer and sent her child into care.

Disgraced consultant Professor David Southall, 58, accused the grieving mother of drugging and killing her 10-year-old son and the reported her to the police, despite having no medical evidence to indicate foul play, a panel heard.

He is also alleged to have forced the sobbing mother to demonstrate with a pencil and shoelace how her ten-year-old son hanged himself after he was found dead at the family home.

The fresh allegations against the paediatrician come after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct for similarly falsely accusing the husband of solicitor Sally Clark of murdering their children.

He was banned from child protection work for three years in 2004 after reporting Stephen Clark- whose wife was jailed for the murders but freed in 2003 - to police on the strength of a television documentary.

The mother-of-two told the General Medical Council that his false accusations, which led to her youngest son being taken into care, left her in tears and feeling "sick and angry." She told the hearing that she was subjected to "aggressive, intimidating and accusatory" questions and threatened that if she did not answer, she would look guilty.

During a "medical" Professor Southall is said to have turned on her, saying: "You killed your son by injecting him, hanging him up, leaving him there and then ringing an ambulance."

The auxiliary nurse, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the hearing: "I was just coming to terms with the death of my eldest son and my younger son was taken away from me."

"He called me a murderer. I was very upset, I was very angry, I was crying."

"I felt sick that I had been accused of murdering my own son and that's something I've got to live with forever."

During the interview in 1998, in front of a "smirking" social worker, she claimed Professor Southall repeatedly demanded that she show him how she found her son after he hanged himself with a belt from a curtain pole.

She was forced to demonstrate to Professor Southall with a pencil and shoelace how her son died.

She said: "I showed him with a pencil and a shoelace."

"Professor Southall stated that he did not think that it was my son's belt because it was too big and that it was "very clever of him."

"He said it quite sarcastically."

Professor Southall is also alleged to have quizzed the woman about her son's height and weight saying he believed that the curtain pole should have broken under the weight of the boy.

She added: "He kept saying that it should have broken due to his height and weight."

"It was very aggressive and sarcastic."

Speaking via videolink from Australia where she has now settled with her husband, she added: "I did not want to talk about it, I said that to Professor Southall."

"He said if I did not show him how it was done, then I must be guilty."

"He didn't believe a word I was saying. He kept asking me one question after another."

A coroner recorded an open verdict on the boy's death in June 1996, after being unable to determine whether it was a suicide or an accident.

But Professor Southall was asked by social services to report on the safety of her second son in February 1998 after the boy apparently made suicide threats, similar to those made by his older brother before his death.

He concluded that she was suffering from Munchausen's syndrome by Proxy, where parents harm or fake illness in their children, and advised that her younger child be removed from his home in north Staffordshire.

West Mercia Police investigated the claims of the consultant at the Royal Brompton and North Staffordshire hospitals, but found no evidence to substantiate his claims.

The mother denied all of his allegations, saying that she believed her son had committed suicide after a school bullying campaign.

But Kieran Coonan QC, representing Dr Southall, told her: "He didn't at any stage accuse you of killing the child. Throughout this interview he was indeed polite, he was courteous and he was indeed calm."

Professor Southall is also accused of tampering with another child's medical records, keeping secret medical files and abusing his professional position in regard to four other children.

He denies serious professional misconduct, but could be struck off if found guilty of the charges.

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