David Southall, Panorama and child protection: Was he victimised?

I worked for West Sussex Social Services from 1991-96 as Team Leader of a Children and Family Team. I worked with Professor David Southall.
Professor Southall was an amazing doctor to work with. He was totally upfront, supportive and honest with the professionals involved with the fourth child of this mother.As well as being a superb paediatrician he had insight into the problems caused for children by parents with mental health problems. He dared to think what had been previously unthought - that parents can and do carry out premeditated abuse on their children. I think the GMC have treated him outrageously

I believe that speaking the truth about child protection is becoming more difficult, due to the current and earlier media campaigns around the issue. That doesn't mean to say the practice of individuals should not be questioned. Certainly in my current childcare work, Paediatricians are much more reluctant to become involved in child protection work, which considering the risks entailed it is hardly surprising.
In terms of social work, I certainly think that anyone working should be a member of a union or professional body,also they should take out professional indemnity insurance. The days are long gone when ,even if you have done the right thing you can expect an employer to protect you. The recent behaviour of politicians and the structural approach to changes, e.g. social work task force and Lamming, clearly illustrates that.
It's tinkering, not real substantial change addressing the core issues. As a consequence, people like Southall, and other social workers will either stay and withdraw from challenging the system (as there are clearly consequences, such as loosing your job, your reputation, risk to your self or your family) or leave.

There is far too much reference to and reliance upon BELIEF when attempting to form policy and practise in this arena.
What is needed is the same kind of EVIDENCE that defeats the superstitious anti-evoloutionists.

After watching the Panorama documentary today I feel compelled to help get Dr Southall back to work so he can continue to save children’s lives and well being. Is there any way I and/or others can assist to this end?
Toby Isherwood

I have just watch the programme and it is heart breaking a proffesional man like Mr Southall might never ever be to practice and the lose of his proffesional opinion in Child protection issues to many children out there.

My personal view is Mr Southall was far ahead in his time and witch hunt was created to stop him in his clinical expertise.

Even clinicians get personal this has nothing to do with a campaign this is an internal battle it is a shame for the GMC for their actions.

I've just watched the Panorama programme - I am an ex-lawyer and someone with painful personal experience of child abuse. I wish I could find it shocking that our courts are still in total denial about the scope and nature of abuse and continue to penalise people who speak out, including victims, who often do this at great personal cost. I know this is no consolation for Dr. Southall or for other professionals being ostracised by the system and the media. Please, please don't give up on shining the light!

It isn't easy being a parent or, indeed, a human being and there isn't enough medical, psychological or social support for all of us. It's much easier to deny that reality than to try and fix it.

If anyone has any contact with Dr. Southall, please tell him that there are thousands of adults in the world today who wish he had been around when they were growing up and many other thousands who had neither the chance to wish, nor to grow up.

I make my comments anonymously having watched the Panorama programme this evening.
I work in Child Protection and have long been an admirer of the heroic work, views and courage of Proffessor Southall. This capaign waged by women and accepted by the spineless GMC is a major abuse not only of Doctor Southall but of all children.The Appeal Court finding is an appalling abuse of chidrens rights including thier right to be protected.
The attention seeking smear capaign by these women against Doctor Southall demonstrates just how far they will go to gain attention
Who will protect the children now I wonder?
The law provides little protection as they pander to the needs of the sensationalist press, abuse social workers giving evidence and raise the thresholds for orders often sending children home to the abusing parent.
The truth is that the need to protect children is a financial thorn in the side of politicians, a public school game played out in adversarial court rooms by `good old boys`who know little about the experiences of children for whom fear neglect an poverty are part of everyday life.
So who will protect the children now ?if the law wont do it, doctors are not allowed to do it, social workers are afraid to do it; who? the press? the Judges? the Politicians? the neighbour? you? me?
I know lets all wash our hands of it and hand it over to parents most of whom are very good at it but some ? oops! there I go again thinking the unthinkable when we all know parents dont abuse thier children.
RIP:All of you little ones from Jasmin Beckford to Baby P all 63 children who have died through abuse between 2006 and 2009 and so many more to come. When it happens that another child dies at the hands of an abuser; parent or not, we wont have to worry as the press can reinstate an abusers right to abuse by calling for the sacking of a social worker and the striking off of a courageous doctor as they celebrate a gang of women who have the support of the GMC (who collude rather than be criticised)all denying the findings of those proffessionals best placed to protect the child, yes that child laying there battered and deceased on front pages, what a scoop!!!!

I am commenting here in an anonymous capacity as I was an expert witness in a Family Court, and know that I can't reveal who I am, although I am academically and professionally almost as well qualified as Dr Southall, maybe more so, although not in the medical profession.

It has been my experience, in speaking up for women targeted as abusers, who, in fact are the mothers of children on the autism spectrum, that Child Protection in the UK has gone into a totally wrong direction. I have had to appear in Family Court, thanks to Dr Southall, for women whose only and serious problem is that their child is on the autism spectrum. I have seen Child Protection come down hard on these mothers, because they don't understand autism. I have seen their children subject to police raids to remove them from mother's evil, because mum has said that the child may be on the autism spectrum. Check out the NAS guidelines on this MSBP issue. I have fought for these loving mums. And doctors accuse them of MSBP and Fabricated Illness, when they cry for help.

Southall and Meadow have cast a shadow over Child Protection issues which is not easily eradicated. They have destroyed families. It's not enough to badmouth those few who dare to accuse.

We should review all Child Protection matters, and draw up a list of those dangerous presentations which are statistically KNOWN - not just imagined by some godlike consultant. What is the empirical evidence? And what does Southall know, and what is he actually qualified to tell us? Not a whole lot, really.

So here's my checklist of danger signs. It's a list of one, and is experiential, and should be easy to remember for all those thinking that child abuse is a complex and female issue. Right. Are you ready for this? (and this is compiled from statistical evidence over 20 years)

* Does mum live alone and look after the child alone, or with familial help, and can we be sure of that?

Because no single not-in-a-relationship but with good caring familial support mum has EVER criminally abused a child.

Has the mum got a new boyfriend? Most criminal abuse cases of children involve new male boyfriend determinants..

Clear as. Women alone do not hurt their children.

Anything that pretends otherwise is misogyny - or some egocentric quack.Or both.

Prof Southall, you have a lot of destroyed lives to your credit. Thank goodness that some of us attempt to repair the damage.

In response to Anon's post dated the 1/6/09. To question the current system, I believe is quite right and appropriate. You are entitled to disagree with the work of Southall and Meadows. Your post raises interesting points that I agree with ( some I do not). However the idea that no single woman can abuse, I am really not sure about, nor that women are always victims in cases where their children are abused ( in some cases clearly yes). I do not believe that suggesting someone had a role in the abuse of their children and is a woman can automatically be called a misogynist. That description I feel is very sweeping.

Is this tosh? Either the correspondent is belittling women (they parent well with support) or is blind to what goes on. Yes, women who are alcoholics can abuse or who are addicts but the same goes for men. It's not a simplistic gender trap and adults have to take responsibility for their actions.

Southall's critics have never denied that child abuse happens. That has always been *his* lie. On the contrary, his strongest critics became aware of what he was doing through their own work for children's safety and advocacy. I have seen a timed transcription of one of Southall's covert videos showing abuse by a parent. What Panorma did not reveal was that the abuser was already known to be such, selected by Southall for his "research" footage, during which the child was repeatedly abused and Southall did not intervene. This happened more than once. He wasn't uncovering anything, he was procuring likely candidates and setting up children to be abused on video.

He also duped many innocent parents into allowing their young children to be restricted in cots for days under the pretext that they need to be wired up to monitoring equipment - in reality he was pinning babies and toddlers down to keep them in sight of the camera. They suffered for his "work".

Then there was the case of the poor mother who took her child into hospital with breathing difficulties, and when the child didn't perform (i.e. have an attack) to Southall's timed agenda he sent in a nurse to threaten her that they would be sent home if nothing happened within the next few minutes. Terrified that her child would die without treatment, the mother pinged the breathing monitor herself. It was a set-up of course.

Southall's victims who hit the headlines (like Steven and Sally Clarke) were just the tip of the iceberg. He and Meadow were extremely dangerous, and did enormous damage to both paediatrics and real child protection. They still can if allowed to carry on.

Anon’s post has a disturbing resonance for those of us who have followed these affairs for some years. The unveiled boasting, the false claim to an anonymity that is not obligatory. The palpable disdain for Southall and the ‘quack’ doctors who dare to confront child killers, the gross suggestion of misogyny. All are familiar exemplars of the vicious and mendacious work of another woman for whom life is centred on revenge and the dissipation of the venom that consumes her. She has a web site dedicated to his destruction.

It is however useful for you to see the mindset of those who have perpetrated this terrible injustice upon our best paediatricians in support of the abusers and their families.

"Southall's victims who hit the headlines (like Steven and Sally Clarke) were just the tip of the iceberg. He and Meadow were extremely dangerous, and did enormous damage to both paediatrics and real child protection. They still can if allowed to carry on".

Southall had no victims and certainly not Sally Clark whose trial he was not involved in. You could argue that his action against Steven was protective of Sally who would have been in prison for something she might not have done. Nose bleeds are very suspicious of attempted suffocation, the more so when the child in question dies a short while later with lung signs compatible with such a diagnosis.

Southall is a paediatrician, something that requires the patience of a saint and masterly clinical skills, for the patient is understandably frightened when ill. He could never “pin down” a baby and would never be able to, for the nurses and his colleagues would object quite properly. The problem is that when you deal with people who find it within themselves to hurt children you will find yourself dealing with the extremely nasty who will say and do what they need to when threatened with exposure.

To the person claiming they are "an expert witness in a Family Court, [who] can't reveal who I am, [...] I am academically and professionally almost as well qualified as Dr Southall" -- you do not sound credible, at all.

You go on to say "Women alone do not hurt their children", which is quite simply, ignorant.

It would seem more likely that you are either seriously misinformed, or operating on an anti-CP agenda masquerading as an experienced or concerned observer.

What an utterly disgraceful piece. You angled the parents in the programme as 'doubtful' people and David Southall as a type of wronged 'messiah' without any proper evidence to support who was 'guilty' or not.

Trial by media taking on a whole new dimension. One of the most biased, badly made Panoramas I have yet seen.

I do not know who was right or wrong in these episodes and Panorama left me no wiser, skewing a very serious subject into a cheap goodies and baddies melodrama. Shame on you.

Paul Hattan:

"I do not know who was right or wrong in these episodes and Panorama left me no wiser, skewing a very serious subject into a cheap goodies and baddies melodrama. Shame on you."

But I do, and the astonishing thing was that this was a redeeming programme for Panorama who have in the past taken the side of the vicious harridans who pursue Southall and Meadow with almost psychopathological diligence. Journalists who have no idea about child protection lazily repeat such nonsense as , Meadow gave “false evidence” that convicted Sally Clark or that Munchausen’s doesn’t exist. Many lies have been told and though the programme was melodramatic that is the way the media works. The point was that they were melodramatic about the truth.

David Southall appeared to be an honest man in the programme. His body language, eye contact, eye movements, gestures and voice tones.....everything. This is a wronged man who is being prevented helping abused children.

You can only feel intimidated by him if you have something to hide. Child abuse is a very large and camouflaged, secretive problem.......Just take the case of baby Peter.

"Southall had no victims and certainly not Sally Clark whose trial he was not involved in. You could argue that his action against Steven was protective of Sally..."

This perverse notion speaks volumes: that in falsely accusing an innocent mother's equally innocent husband - the father and carer of her child who led the effort to find the truth that cleared her name - that Southall somehow acted in her interest, is absurd. The tragic consequences of such twisted thinking are numerous and real - every innocent parent Southall falsely accused of abuse; every child taken from parents because of those false accusations, including siblings; every family ripped apart; every childhood ruined. These are, indeed, Southall's victims. He did them all harm.

Southall and his supporters would have have us believe that he was removed from his position because of a "skillful media campaign" by abusers. This is tosh. The GMC rightly dealt with Southall because he made false allegations of murder without evidence. He abused his position of power and trust in a heinous fashion. He no longer enjoys that position of trust, and must never wield that power to wreck lives again.

As a mother who has been accused of child neglect/abuse, I want to say that I strongly support the work of David Southall and the social work department. When she was 3 my little girl kept falling of her scooter and grazing her knees, then fell one day and banged her head as well, and I took her into casualty as her head was bleeding quite badly. The staff were great, although it was clear they didnt really believe it when I told them what had happened. They questioned me closely, examined my daughter carefully, and eventually treated my daughter and allowed her home with me, but raised our name with local services in order to check that I was not harming my children.

Whilst I obviously was not pleased to be suspected of child abuse, I have to say that overall I was very glad that the sight of a small child with a number of bruises and injuries sparked a child protection check. So it should have. My little girl was only about 3 and completely helpless, if I had been hurting her on purpose then she would have been utterly at my mercy, a horrible thought. I am glad of this evidence that we are a bit quicker to suspect abuse and move to support children.

Happily for me, my family doctor was able to dispel any fear of deliberate abuse as he knew me and the kids well, and the matter was taken no further. But we as a society have to accept that sometimes mistakes will be made, and not rush to get angry or sue 'specialists' for genuine mistakes.

God knows, I wouldnt dare to be a child protection worker in todays society - doctor's and social workers are damned if they do and damned if they dont. I admire anyone who works in child protection. I'd love to shake Professor Southall's hand and thank him, mother to specialist, for standing up for abused kids. I hope that he and other experts have the courage to keep fighting.