Jamie Doward, social affairs editor Sunday January 25, 2004 The Observer
Ministers were warned that the
controversial scientific theory Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP) was
responsible for serious miscarriages of justice as far back as 1996,
according to documents seen by The Observer.
Our investigation has uncovered a
systematic failure on the part of the health authorities, social
services and scientific advisers to question the validity of Professor
Sir Roy Meadow's theory, which claims that some parents harm their
children to draw attention to themselves.
The theory has been at the centre of
huge controversy after hundreds of children were taken into care over
fears that their parents were capable of harming them. It was also at
the heart of the debate over cot deaths but has recently been
discredited after a series of high-profile court cases, which drew on
Meadow's theory, were overturned.
Critics of MSBP acknowledge parents
harm their children. But, as leading sceptic Lord Clement-Jones, puts
it, there is a need to ask 'whether MSBP really is a scientifically or
medically established condition ... MSBP by its very nature can become
a self-fulfilling prophesy'.
Anti-MSBP campaigners claim thousands
of parents may have been wrongly separated from their children as a
result of the theory, which has been described in parliament as
creating 'the equivalent of the stigma of witchcraft in the Middle
Ages'.
An Observer investigation has
uncovered a catalogue of errors surrounding MSBP including:
· The failure by both Tony
Blair and Jack Straw to investigate the claims of a leading child
psychologist and former government adviser who wrote to them warning
that she was aware of several cases in which parents had been wrongly
separated from their children because of MSBP.
· The failure of a government
inquiry into fabricated child illnesses to interview sceptics of
Meadow's theory. The inquiry published a guide to MSBP for local health
authorities that has subsequently been described as 'deeply flawed'.
· The publication of a report
into fabricated child illnesses by the Royal College of Paediatrics and
Child Health (RCPCH) which failed to address scientific concerns over
MSBP.
· The ongoing failure of the
General Medical Council to conclude its investigation into another
leading proponent of MSBP, Professor David Southall. In January 2002
the GMC announced it would hold a hearing into allegations that
Southall made a series of false accusations of child abuse against
parents. A spokeswoman for the GMC said: 'The investigation into
Professor Southall is ongoing.'
The revelations come as the fallout
from the Meadow affair is set to go global. Thousands of families
around the world who have had their children taken into care are to
demand their cases be re-examined.
The demands follow last week's
revelation that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, is to undertake
an urgent review of more than 250 criminal cases where a parent had
killed a child and in which MSBP was cited.
The move was a response to the
overturning of three cases where the mother was wrongly accused of
killing her children and in which Meadow's work was used. But the scope
of Meadow's theory of MSBP, which he first advanced in 1977, extends
much further than criminal murder trials involving infanticide.
The Government is preparing to ask
local authorities to comb their records to highlight all civil family
law cases which have involved MSBP.
It is thought that the number of
parents who have had their children taken into care after the civil
courts ruled that 'on balance' they had harmed their children, or were
capable of harming them, will run to 5,000 in the UK alone.
Because the cases were heard in a
civil rather than a criminal court, the judge did not have to be
convinced that there was evidence of harm 'beyond reasonable doubt' and
could instead rely on the scientific claims made by paediatricians.
This has prompted unease among politicians.
The Countess of Mar declared in the
House of Lords last month: 'There are many thousands of women who have
been accused of, or labelled as having Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy,
without clinical or legal assessment. They have no recourse to the
courts and, each time they protest, they are told that they are in
denial and that it is a sign of having Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy.'
Mar concluded: 'This is an equivalent
of the stigma of witchcraft in the Middle Ages; there is no trial, and
one is guilty until one can prove that one is not guilty, and one has
no way in which to prove that one is not guilty.'
Concerns over the validity of MSBP
were raised in 1995 in the scientific journal Archives of Disease in
Childhood. 'Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy is a term I suggest we use
with caution ... It is important not to harm the child by falsely
accusing his mother of MSBP, thereby breaking up the family,' warned
one academic, Dr Colin Morley. In the same journal, even Meadow
concedes that the theory has 'led to confusion for the medical, social
work and legal professions'.
Lisa Blakemore-Brown, a child
psychologist and expert on autism and Asperger's Syndrome, who, as
chairwoman of an organisation called Promoting Parenting Skills acted
as an adviser to the Home Office, wrote to then shadow secretary Jack
Straw in 1996 warning that MSBP had resulted in a mother being wrongly
separated from her children.
Between 1996 and 2002 Blakemore-Brown
also raised her concerns in a series of letters to, among others, Tony
Blair, health secretaries Frank Dobson, Alun Milburn and Health
Minister Jacqui Smith. In each case she received a reply observing only
that her concern had 'been noted'. She also wrote to the Psychologist
magazine, warning: 'I cannot establish a robust scientific base and am
aware of a number of cases in which mothers have had children removed
on the basis of this diagnosis to discover later that their children
had real illnesses or disorders which were missed when the notion of
MSBP loomed large.'
A spokesman for the Department of
Health said MSBP was a 'matter for the Department for Skills and
Education'. The DfSE declined to give a response other than to state:
'We will consider the steps now announced by the Attorney General
before making further comment.'
But critics of MSBP are concerned that
the Government's record suggests little action will be taken. The
Observer has established that a government inquiry into MSBP in 2001
failed to interview experts who had expressed scepticism about the
syndrome, or examine their research which cast serious doubts on
whether it held up as a scientific theory.
The committee chairing the inquiry
subsequently published a report into fabricated child illnesses which
Earl Howe describes as 'deeply flawed - principally because it fails
almost wholly to acknowledge that the topic is highly controversial and
that erroneous diagnosis is a real risk.'
The Observer has been in contact with
anti-MSPB groups around the world including America, New Zealand and
Australia.
'I know of at least 70 cases in
Australia, many of which I have been involved in professionally, where
I have come to the conclusion that the parent wasn't guilty,' said Dr
Helen Hayward-Brown, a medical sociologist and advocate for parents
whose children have been taken from them.
