MSBP

Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy was the brainchild of Sir Roy Meadow, a paediatrican. He claimed that some mothers harm their children to draw attention to themselves.

In three separate appeal cases last year that involved his evidence, mothers were acquitted of murdering their children and released from prison. Hundreds of children have been taken into care over the past decade because of Sir Roy Meadow's 'theory', and the Government is now conducting a review of these cases. The chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission has already indicated that cases which had relied solely on disputed medical evidence would be deemed unsafe.

The General Medical Council recently announced that Sir Roy Meadow is to face a disciplinary inquiry later this year (2004).

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Hansard debate 24/02/04

Extract as follows...

Vera Baird (Redcar) (Lab): I congratulate the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) on securing the debate, and on the diligence with which he has advanced his constituents' interests and joined others with a common interest to oppose this miscarriage of justice. I applaud the clarity with which he set out his concerns. I am in the unique position in this Chamber of having cross-examined Professor Meadow. His is not just the latest of a recent set of theories. He has advanced his arguments for an enormous length of time. I cross-examined him in 1988. It is not unkind to say that he invented Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy and I do not use that word in a pejorative sense. He created it and has lived on it ever since. He was a permanent professional witness in cases where he felt that the syndrome—now highly questionable—existed, which is a difficult model. It seemed that Professor Meadow was called into cases where there was no direct or circumstantial evidence that would answer the question of whether injuries or deaths of children were accidental or deliberately caused by a parent. He was called in to say, "Now that I have looked at one of these parents"—almost invariably the mother—"she resembles the type of person who does injure their child". That was about the size of the evidence that he gave. It was an extra difficulty for anyone labelled as a sufferer of Munchausen syndrome that he asserted that a characteristic of the syndrome was that people who had it denied that they had it. Consequently, one went in circles trying to get out from under the expertise that he proffered, which was dangerous indeed.