Appeal move by consultant over GMC ban
A consultant paediatrician who was struck off the medical register after falsely accusing a Shropshire mother of killing her 10-year-old son launched a Court of Appeal battle today in his bid for reinstatement.
The action is being brought by Dr David Southall over a High Court ruling which upheld the decision of the General Medical Council's fitness to practise panel to strike him off for serious professional misconduct.
Dr Southall is urging Lords Justices Waller, Dyson and Leveson to grant him permission to appeal against the decision of Mr Justice Blake, who said he had made "truly shocking" and unjustified accusations that the mother drugged and murdered her son.
The paediatrician, one of the UK's leading experts in the protection of children from abuse, had been asked by a county council to provide an independent report relating to the safety of her surviving son.
A GMC panel found in 2007 his actions added to the distress of the mother, Mrs M, of Shropshire, whose 10-year-old boy hanged himself in 1996.
Dismissing Dr Southall's appeal, Mr Justice Blake said: "The unjustified accusation of murder . . . was an abuse of the role of consultant and expert instructed in ongoing litigation."