Meadow's Law - History

History

The "law" has it that because such deaths are a rare phenomenon and difficult to explain by natural causes, we might say that "One is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder unless there is proof to the contrary."

The name is derived from the controversial British paediatrician, Roy Meadow, who until 2003 was seen by many as "Britain's most eminent paediatrician" and leading expert on child abuse. Meadow's reputation went into decline with a series of legal reverses for his theories, and the damage was confirmed in July 2005 when he was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council for tendering misleading evidence. Meadow's license was reinstated in February 2006 by a London court.

Meadow attributes many unexplained infant deaths to the disorder or condition in mothers called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. According to this diagnosis some parents, especially mothers, harm or even kill their children as a means of calling attention to themselves. Its existence has been confirmed by cases where parents have been caught on video surveillance actively harming their children, but its frequency is subject to debate as Meadow claimed to have destroyed the original data which he used to substantiate the law.

As a result of the 1993 trial of Beverley Allitt, a paediatric nurse convicted of killing four children under her care and injuring five others, Meadow's ideas gained ascendancy in British child protection circles, and mothers were convicted of murder on the basis of his expert testimony. Thousands of children were removed from their parents and taken into care or fostered out because they were deemed to be 'at risk'. From 2003, however, the tide of opinion turned: a number of high-profile acquittals cast doubt on the validity both of Munchausen's and 'Meadow's Law'. Several convictions were reversed, and many more came under review.