Southall struck off

[ElenyaTuesday]

See here

Southall

LOL at him thinking he's Cracker

Robbie Coltrane has a lot to answer for

Absolutely LB

Ok, have gone online to find out more about this 'professionals against child abuse', at least partly to find out who is a member, and make sure that I or any of my children never come into contact with any of them, but - surprise! - they have no website and seem to be very secretive.

Probably all his inner circle.....off to hunt as well.

there are these guys in the US. But Professionals Against Child Abuse in the UK don't seem to have a web presence. Or at least, not one that Google knows about.

bossy, the SW/barristers/other doctors are probably sitting there wishing their court work was secret...oh, yes, it is secret, no need to worry then...

Isnt this the man who covertly filmed parents hurting and abusing their own children? Or shall we just conveniently forget that in an orgy of self-righteousness...

Yeah, he stood back and watched kids getting hurt in order to collect his research data. Also his interpretation of some of what he saw as abuse is questionable.

This guy needed to be stopped, hopefully he has been.

Was going to say that too bufobufo. He has clearly overstepped many lines in the sand, and I agree, probably does see himself as some sort of crusading uber doctor cum Cracker type, but he did unveil serious attacks by parents on their children, and saved those childrens lives. Filming was not all covert, some families were told clearly that their baby would be filmed to watch for episodes of stopping breathing, and they parents still suffocated them.

And if you work in an area where you do see unthinkable things like that, not once, but time and time again, in different families, maybe that distorts your view of normality.

This is not an excuse for the accusations he has made, or for the secret files, but just a small counterbalance - he did make a significant contribution to child protection, and I think this is probably what the Royal College of Paediatricians is referring to.

im sure Harold Shipman probably did some good and saved some lives too .

Right...so even the fact (and yes it is a FACT) that parents were hurting their own children turns out to be his fault...the way this has been reported (and is being discussed, this thread being a prime example) in terms of the "evil doctor", "evil research" etc makes me very uncomfortable.

And PS, no I am not a doctor!

Yes apparantly Shipman's patients loved him.

Dh says that all the stuff they have put in place to 'protect' patients since Shipman is a waste of time and he could still get away with it today too. He should know - he works as a single handed GP a lot of the time.

bufobufo but any good he might have done has now been overshadowed by the secret research, the secret files, and his arogant attitude. They had a mother on this morning who (and I didn't see the whole interview) but her son had breathing problems - he even had a trachiostomy, they went to what they thought was a case conference and it turned out to bee a meeting of 28 people against this family, with Southall presenting his "evidence". she dropped her perfectly healthy little boy off at the hospital for some tests, and the next day when she picked him up he was brain damaged because of tests that involved giving him carbon monoxide.

We're not talking about honest mistakes here where he has held his hands up and admitted wrongdoing, we're talking about a man who has hidden medical documents about patients, who carried out unauthorised tests that caused harm to children, parents who lost custody of their children because he thought he knew it all and because people trusted him.

it doesn't matter now what good he did, because it has been outweighed by the bad.

or should we just say "well, it's all very terrible and all that but we should think about the children he did save, not the ones he destroyed through his methods".

Well I feel more comfortable with the tone of this thread, than with the tone of the Royal College of Paediatricians. Who has power over mothers? Mumsnetters or them? Who has more influence? Who can do more damage to families? I know who frightens me more.

Precisely. Sorry, bufobufo, but whether or not he did good in his career is a complete irrelevance to the fact that he has done some dreadful things.

If I had been abusing one of my children, it wouldn't make any difference for me to say that I treated the others really well, and even saved their lives a few times.

I'm not arguing that he did good.
I'm saying - lets not forget that it is a FACT that parents DO hurt and abuse their children. Its not a case (or shouldnt be) of evil doctors versus innocent parents. The really sad thing is that all this doctor bashing just makes the medical profession very reluctant to get involved at all...in which case, its the children who suffer.
And as for the tone of the thread...I just detect a hint of self-righteous enjoyment in some of the posts. Thats all.

PS that last post by bossybritches is a very good example of what I am talking about!

I think we are perfectly safe in giving our opinion of a doctor who has been struck off, wrt the area in which he was found at fault. And we are free to discuss the inadequacy of child protection in this country.

There are several tragedies here. The tragedy of the families torn apart on very dubious grounds by what seems to be a doctor with a God complex. And that tragedy affects the children as much as the parents - something Southall tries to evade, presenting his crusade as 'pro children'.

The tragedy of someone who was undoubtedly a talented paediatrican who went very badly wrong and can't even see it, much less apologise for the harm he has caused.

And the tragedy of SS and Southall diverting time and attention from cases of actual abuse where children could be helped.

bufobufo, demonising people who disagree with you is a pretty cheap debating trick. You don't need to deny the existence of child abuse to object to Southall. That's what he would like to pretend: 'I am on the side of the angels and anyone who disagrees with me is on the side of the abusers'. Nonsense.

I'm always up for a cheap trick, but who did I demonise?

Bufo exactly what in my post offended you?

"self-righteous enjoyment?"