Timeline: Sir Roy Meadow (original) (raw)

November 1998
Donna Anthony is wrongly jailed for life at Bristol crown court for murdering her 11-month-old daughter, Jordan, and four-month-old son, Michael, after Professor Meadow and another expert tell the court that the chances of two cot deaths in a case like hers were one in 1 million.

November 1999
Solicitor Sally Clark is wrongly jailed for life for murdering her two baby sons, Christopher and Harry. Prof Meadow tells the jury there is a one in 73 million chance of two cot deaths occurring in a family like hers.

June 2000
Donna Anthony's first appeal against her conviction is dismissed.

October 2000
Mrs Clark's first appeal against her conviction is dismissed, despite three judges accepting that Prof Meadow's statistical evidence was incorrect. The actual odds of two babies dying of cot death in a family like Mrs Clark's was just one in 77.

January 2003
The appeal court overturns Mrs Clark's conviction after it emerges that a Home Office pathologist had failed to disclose microbiology tests on her son Harry, which indicated he could have died from natural causes. They added that Prof Meadow's statistical error alone should have made her conviction unsafe.

June 2003
Trupti Patel is cleared of killing three of her babies, despite Sir Roy putting forward the view that "two cot deaths is suspicious, three is murder". The trial hears that Mrs Patel's maternal grandmother lost five children in early infancy, suggesting a genetic disorder could account for the deaths. A consultant paediatric pathologist also tells the court that the broken ribs suffered by one of the babies could have been the result of hospital resuscitation practices.

December 2003
Angela Cannings' conviction for killing her two baby sons is quashed after a geneticist tells the appeal court that an undiscovered genetic disorder could have been responsible for the deaths. The court says that in future no prosecutions should be brought where medical experts are in dispute and there is no other cogent evidence.

January 2004
The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, orders a review of all convictions over the previous 10 years of parents and carers for killing children under two to see if they raised similar concerns to those in the Cannings case.

December 2004
Lord Goldsmith announces that just six parents who claim they were wrongly convicted of killing their children on disputed medical evidence have asked the Criminal Cases Review Commission to refer their cases to the court of appeal. Medical journal the Lancet publishes research that concludes second cot deaths in the same family are far more likely to be from natural cases than abuse.

April 2005
Mrs Anthony is freed after the court of appeal quashed her convictions as "unsafe." The judge says her trial had been conducted on the basis of Prof Meadow's now discredited theory that two sudden infant deaths in the same family are statistically rare.

June 2005
Doctors' watchdog the General Medical Council (GMC) opens a serious professional misconduct hearing on Prof Meadow's evidence in the Sally Clark case.

July 2005
The GMC strikes Prof Meadow off the medical register after finding him guilty of serious professional misconduct. The council decides he gave "erroneous" and "misleading" evidence at Mrs Clark's trial.