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Shaken baby syndrome: causes and consequences of conformity

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By Waney Squier

About ten years ago, a colleague of mine, a prominent prosecution expert, told me there was a move afoot to have me reported to the General Medical Council (GMC)[1] for my evidence in shaken baby syndrome cases. I shrugged this off, telling him that I prepared my reports to the standard of my published research papers, based on my professional experience and supported by critically-reviewed and valid scientific evidence. In fact, I would be confident defending them at an international conference of my peers, something with which I was very familiar as an academic paediatric neuropathologist.

The following year, I was subject to harsh criticism in a raft of family court judgments, one of which was [1] In accordance with the rules of the family court, I was not able to respond to the specifics of these criticisms.[2]Judges are regularly invited to reach adverse findings about the nature and quality of evidence given by expert witnesses; this is part and parcel of the adversarial process. My nonchalance may have sprung from complacency, or arrogance or sheer naivety, but it came as something of a shock to be informed, in the course of an ongoing criminal case in June 2010, that I and the other defence expert in that case (Marta Cohen) had been reported to the GMC on the basis of these critical judgments. I had failed to realise that casual comments in a hospital corridor were the first rumblings of a storm that was to engulf the next decade of my life and to alter profoundly the potential for families to defend themselves against allegations of abuse.

This paper describes how a campaign was forged to suppress legitimate scientific evidence presented in courts and to silence dissent. This campaign has had a profound impact on the delivery of justice.

[1] The doctors’ regulatory body in the UK:“We are an independent organisation that helps to protect patients and improve medical education and practice across the UK” (http://www.gmc-uk.org/about/role.asp).

page: 22 – 66
Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 35, Issue 5
SKU: 350501

SKU: 350501 Category: Tags: ,

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By Waney Squier

About ten years ago, a colleague of mine, a prominent prosecution expert, told me there was a move afoot to have me reported to the General Medical Council (GMC)[1] for my evidence in shaken baby syndrome cases. I shrugged this off, telling him that I prepared my reports to the standard of my published research papers, based on my professional experience and supported by critically-reviewed and valid scientific evidence. In fact, I would be confident defending them at an international conference of my peers, something with which I was very familiar as an academic paediatric neuropathologist.

The following year, I was subject to harsh criticism in a raft of family court judgments, one of which was [1] In accordance with the rules of the family court, I was not able to respond to the specifics of these criticisms.[2]Judges are regularly invited to reach adverse findings about the nature and quality of evidence given by expert witnesses; this is part and parcel of the adversarial process. My nonchalance may have sprung from complacency, or arrogance or sheer naivety, but it came as something of a shock to be informed, in the course of an ongoing criminal case in June 2010, that I and the other defence expert in that case (Marta Cohen) had been reported to the GMC on the basis of these critical judgments. I had failed to realise that casual comments in a hospital corridor were the first rumblings of a storm that was to engulf the next decade of my life and to alter profoundly the potential for families to defend themselves against allegations of abuse.

This paper describes how a campaign was forged to suppress legitimate scientific evidence presented in courts and to silence dissent. This campaign has had a profound impact on the delivery of justice.

[1] The doctors’ regulatory body in the UK:“We are an independent organisation that helps to protect patients and improve medical education and practice across the UK” (http://www.gmc-uk.org/about/role.asp).

page: 22 – 66
Prometheus: Critical Studies in Innovation Volume 35, Issue 5
SKU: 350501

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