Sally Clark, the solictor wrongly imprisoned between 1999 and 2003 for the murder of both her young sons, died this morning, according to BBC News.
Her conviction, and subsequent acquittal, became very famous in the UK, particular because of some of the statistics offered by an expert witness, Sir Roy Meadow. Meadow’s evidence was, basically, that the chance of both of Sally Clark’s sons dying of natural causes was so slim, that one had to assume that they were murdered. The structure of his argument was as follows:
- The chance of a randomly chosen child dying or Sids (Sudden Infant Death Syndome, popularly known as cot death) is about 1 in 3000.
- Amongst non-smoking, older parents, with at least one wage, this rises to about 1 in 8500.
- The chance of both Sally Clark’s sons dying of Sids is about 1 in 8500×8500, or 1 in 73 million.
- The chance that the two boys were not murdered is 1 in 73 million.
Meadow’s error has made three errors here: First, he assumed that having one child die of Sids has no affect on the likeliness of a second child dying the same way, hence the 8500×8500 figure. Evidence suggests that, in fact, if one child dies of Sids, the chance of it’s sibling dying that way also is reduced to 1 in 200. Quite a difference from 8500.
Second, the likeliness of innocence given the evidence has been confused with the likeliness of the evidence given innocence. No-one asked what the chance a randomly chosen mother killed her two children. This is known as the Prosecutor’s Fallacy. This is explained superbly by Helen Joyce in an article for Plus magazine. (It’s worth noting that this article was written, basically for schoolkids, whilst Sally Clark was still in prison.)
The third, slightly more subtle, is that whilst Meadow used factors decreasing the likelihood of a Sids death (non-smoking, wage, age), he did not appear to look for factors that might have increased such a likeliness. In other words, he chose the statistics that best supported his case, and ignored those that didn’t.
That such mistakes that were allowed to go virtually unchallenged in court is almost unbelievable – this is basic, basic statistics. It’s on the GCSE syllabus. Fifteen year old kids should know better than to accept such an argument. That Meadow didn’t know this, the judge didn’t know this and no-one on Sally Clark’s defence team knew this shames them all.
As the Royal Statistical Society stated in a press release (pdf),
[T]here is a real possibility that without proper guidance, and well-informed presentation, frequency estimates presented in court could be misinterpreted by the jury in ways that are very prejudicial to defendants. Society does not tolerate doctors making serious clinical errors because it is widely understood that such errors could mean the difference between life and death. The case of R v. Sally Clark is one example of a medical expert witness making a serious statistical error, one which may have had profound effect on the outcome of the case.
Richard Webster, (in a very fine and detailed article on this subject, well worth a read, see below) is more forceful:
When [Meadow] told the jury that the odds against two of Sally Clark’s children dying of unidentified natural causes (or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) were 73 million to one, he was leaving the area of his expertise – paediatric medicine – and entering a field in whose basic principles he was completely unschooled – statistical probability. He did so without alerting the jury or the court to the fact he was no longer addressing them as an expert and thus invested a statistical fallacy with all the authority his medical status endued him with.
Meadow was struck off the medical register in July 2005. He was reinstated 7 months later on appeal. Sally Clark spent 20 months in prison, until her conviction was quashed on her second appeal.
Sally Clark’s third son was born while she was on bail. (The jury were not allowed knowledge of his existence during the trial, instead being told the Sally Clark was a hopeless alcoholic who murdered her children because they had ruined her trim figure and career prospects.) He spent much of his early life without his mother, who was wrongly imprisoned for a crime she did not commit, and has now lost her permanently.
References
Richard Webster Roy Meadow, the statistics of cot deaths and other fragments
Ray Hill Cot death or murder – weighing the possibilities (Word document)
17 March, 2007 at 2:34 am
Approaching the anniversary of the third decade since LANCET unleashed Roy Meadow’s baseless “disorder,” it is far past time for the press, prosecutors and the public to read caarefully the fount of all mischief, mayhem and, one might say, dis-membering of families.
The death of Sally Clark is tragic validation of a hard truth: that false allegations of child abuse–particularly the imaginative and impossible to easily disprove MSP–is an eternal injury. No one recovers, not really.
Read Meadow’s “Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: The Hinterlands of Child Abuse.” Scrutinize it in the August 13, 1977 issue of LANCET.
As John East notes, the chance that Roy Meadow ever will apologize for his myth of MSP is zero to none. Therefore, it remains to LANCET editors and publishers to fall honorably on their pens and tell the whole truth.
* That Roy Meadow now claims to have “shredded” his notes to one of the most sinister and cynical op-ed pieces in the history of purported medical journalism.
* That even in his hour of greatest need during the shadowy, if never really dark days of GMC gillings, not one single person, place or thing was brought forward to authenticate any of the alleged “facts” in “Hinterlands.”
* To this day, despite the brave efforts of at least one incensed gentleman, Roy Meadow had not been made to answer for his deliberately saltloading a sick baby. Any other doctor would have been sacked and never again allowed to “practice” on the unsuspecting public and, in particular, babies and children.
There is more, of course, none of which will restore bearable life to Sally Clark or her infant sons she joins apart from the third and her husband and family.
Oh, and when will the press notice (see whonamedit.com) that Roy Meadow did NOT first name or identify MSP? Will someone realize that of the short reference list following his “Hinterlands” article that his colleagues publicizing “salt poisoning” in the British Isles where medical genetics may hold the best explanation apparently was too much for him.
He seems to have needed to leap frog both science and common sense to provide his own “diagnosis” which is far less than a realistic motivation theory but STILL, as I write, destroys families, costs government and insurance companies, and keeps the courts and press corps buzzing around the world.
In memory of everything good and loving and caring about the Clark family, let us hope that the powers that be, press, prosecutors and the public reread and perceive the hollow and shallow “research” (it can never be replicated and never has been) in the single seminal article launching MSP literally around the world.
There being no proof, no permission to conduct such “research,” no notes (shredded or non-existent ab inito?), no scientific methodology, no universally accepted definition, and on and on, EVERY case using any variant name for MSP and a varity of FIBS (fabricated illness by suspicion) should be reviewed and families retored to each or contact created with no more excuses, delays or false honor paid to a dishonorable doctor and the journal that assured his attention-seeking would be rewarded.