A doctor whose withholding of post-mortem evidence led to Sally Clark's wrongful conviction for murdering her two babies has escaped a life ban from medicine, writes Mithran Samuel.
A General Medical Council panel found Dr Alan Williams guilty of serious professional misconduct for post-mortem errors on both Christopher and Harry Clark and his failure to disclose vital evidence on the latter at trial.
But it refused to strike Williams off the GMC register, instead banning him for three years from Home Office pathology or coroners' cases.
It said Williams failed in his duty as an expert witness by not disclosing test results from Harry's post-mortem at Clark's trial. Its later disclosure led to the quashing of her conviction at her second appeal.
It said: "Your errors and omissions were formidable. [They] seriously undermined confidence in the role of a doctor as an expert witness."
However, it added that Williams had no intention to mislead, was not a danger to patients and was not generally incompetent, making a life ban inappropriate.
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