Experts should be less wary of judicial condemnation after two surprising hearings, says Peter Gooderham
The issue of sanctions against expert witnesses remains live, almost a year after the Court of Appeal’s decision in Meadow v General Medical Council [2006] EWCA Civ 1390, [2007] 1 All ER 1. Two surprising decisions have recently been made—both were in favour of experts who had been widely criticised, especially by judges.
DONEGAN
In August 2007 Dr Jayne Donegan was found not guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council (GMC) (see Owen Dyer, “GMC clears GP accused of giving court ‘junk science’ on MMR vaccine” British Medical Journal 335:416-417, 1 September 2007). She had given evidence in support of parents who did not want their children to be immunised.
In Re C and Re F (children) (immunisation) [2003] EWHC 1376 (Fam), [2003] All ER (D) 179 (Jun) she was criticised by Mr Justice Sumner who said she had allowed her “deeply held feelings on the risks of immunisation to over-rule her duty to provide unbiased opinion to the court”. Notoriously, when the case was heard in
