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Exclusive: General Medical Council Transcripts in the Case
of Professor David Southall Investigations and hearings concerning paediatrician David Southall always attract a great deal of media attention. This is hardly surprising, because child protection is an emotive issue and has obvious attractions for journalists seeking an easy story to write up. In this they are greatly assisted by the steady stream of propaganda put forth by anti-Southall campaigners, many of whom are parents accused (rightly or wrongly) of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Unfortunately, many journalists are only too happy to accept without question what this small but vociferous pressure group has to say. After all, lurid tales of monstrous misconduct by a senior medical practitioner make great reading, even if they do have to engage in a little selective editing to arrive at the desired story. Take this article from the BBC, for example. It presents an entirely one-sided view of Professor Southall’s actions, as presented to the General Medical Council by a mother whose son was taken into care following the death of her other son. Whether or not events unfolded in the way this mother proclaims (and there appears to be some question about that), whether or not Professor Southall acted in the way he is alleged to have acted, and whether or not it was right for him to do so if he did, it cannot be right for the media to present a constant flow of biased reports that serve only to show the complainant’s side of the story. How is the accused ever to receive a fair hearing in the face of such a wide-ranging barrage of negative publicity? How is the public ever to know the truth about such hearings when media reports are couched in emotive terms designed to promote the complainant’s point of view? With a view to redressing the balance, we present the transcripts of the GMC hearing that took place late in 2006. Read them carefully, and decide for yourselves whether the media reports are an accurate and completely truthful account of the hearing, or whether they may have been distorted by the influence of a tenacious, well-connected group of campaigners with their own agenda. Transcripts David Southall
2006 - Day 1
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