Williams banned for three years

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.