Expert confounds Meadow’s maths

Sir Roy Meadow was wrong to say that the chance of both Sally
Clark’s sons dying of cot death was one in 73 million, an expert
has told the General Medical Council.

Colin Aitken, forensic statistics professor at the University of
Edinburgh, told the fitness to practice panel that he disagreed
with Meadow’s assessment that two infants dying of cot death in a
family would happen once every 100 years.

He told the panel, which will decide whether Meadow is guilty of
serious professional misconduct, that it was eight times more
likely for a cot death to occur in a family if there had already
been one.

Meadow gave evidence in Clark’s case and she was later jailed for
killing her sons, Christopher and Harry. Her convictions were
quashed in the Court of Appeal in 2003.

Meadow denies the charges.