Pathologist Freddy Patel’s findings are questioned at public inquiry
Published: 23 July, 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
A PATHOLOGIST at the centre of a public inquiry into four post mortems he carried saw his findings into the death of a five-year-old Islington girl questioned yesterday (Wednesday).
Dr Freddy Patel, 63, a pathologist at St Pancras Coroner’s Court, could be struck off the doctor’s register if a General Medical Council (GMC) panel find his conduct is impaired.
Dr Patel, who is currently suspended from carrying out forensic post mortems, still conducts routine – or non-suspicious – post mortems.
The GMC hearing, which began on Monday, began investigating his findings into the death of Annastacia Williams – referred to as Miss B – on Tuesday.
Annastacia, 5, from Islington, died from a serious head injury at Great Ormond Street Hospital in 2002 after, according to her parents, falling down stairs. Dr Patel’s initial post mortem report accepted she died from injuries sustained from falling down stairs and reported there were “no significant marks of violence”. Simon Jackson QC, acting on behalf of the GMC, said Dr Patel’s initial report “lacked detail in relation to marks of violence” and did not explain his comment that there were no significant marks.
At an Old Bailey trial in 2003, in which Annastacia’s father Ken Williams and her stepmother Christine Green were sentenced to six years in prison in total for child cruelty, it emerged that the child had been attacked with a fork and bitten. A second post mortem examination – carried out by Dr Patel and Dr Nat Carey – revealed she also had a broken bone in her chest, a chipped bone in her arm and bruising and scratches.
Yesterday Dr Carey told the panel Dr Patel should have picked up on the injuries immediately.
“The role of a pathologist is always to act as a gatekeeper for suspicious deaths,” he said, adding: “Even taken on its own, a number of scars should raise concern and convert this to a forensic autopsy and ask the police to attend.”
He said the post mortem should not have been conducted without a skeletal survey. The second post mortem found Annastacia died from being thrown against a wall or floor. She had come to England a year earlier from Jamaica for a better life, the court was told, when she was set upon by Green. In addition, the GMC allege that Dr Patel, in failing to call Great Ormond Street Hospital prior to his post mortem, did not know a radiologist had ordered a skeletal X-Ray of her body which would go on to reveal she had broken bones and evidence of previously healed injuries.
As a result, when the X-Ray came back, two days after his post mortem, Annastacia had been buried and a coroner had to order her body be exhumed for second post mortem.
“In conducting this post mortem, Dr Patel had done nothing to investigate the background or circumstances of the death,” Mr Jackson said.
The hearing continues.