Pathologist Dr Freddy Patel: no marks of violence on cruelty victim Annastasia Williams

Published: 13 August, 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS

A PATHOLOGIST has claimed that marks of violence could not be found when he carried out an autopsy on the body of a five-year-old Islington girl at the ­centre of a child cruelty case.

Dr Freddy Patel told a fitness to practise hearing brought by the General Medical Council (GMC) that signs of injury revealed at a second post-mortem may have been shown up by embalming fluid.

Annastasia Williams died from a head injury in September 2002. Her father and stepmother said she had fallen down the stairs but experts disagreed over whether she had been thrown against a wall or floor or not. The couple were jailed for child cruelty at the Old Bailey in 2003.

Dr Patel, who conducted the first post-mortem on Annastasia’s body, said he could not see “significant marks of violence”. He concluded that her death was consistent with falling down stairs.

After concerns about injuries, including a fractured breastbone which showed up on X-rays at Great Ormond Street Hospital, her body was exhumed and a second post-mortem reveal­ed a bite mark on her shoulder, finger-grip marks across her torso and fork punctures in her arm.

A GMC panel is investigating Dr Patel, who has three decades of experience and has worked at St Pancras Mortuary for more than 10 years. The hearing focuses on four post-mortems he carried out, including one conducting on Annastasia.

He told the panel that suspicious marks identified at a second post-mortem had not been visible during the one he carried out in September 2002. He said he believed the finger-grip marks to be chicken pox.

Dr Nat Carey, who conducted the second post-mortem with Dr Patel, told the panel last month that marks of violence were “clearly visible to the naked eye” while a policeman who observed the autopsy said it was “obvious to a lay person these marks were not natural causes”.

Detective Superintendent David Shephard was so concerned by Dr Patel’s original findings that he wrote to his boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Andrew Murphy, unit commander of the Met’s Homicide Serious Crime Command, warning him not to use the pathologist again.

Asked by GMC barrister Simon Jackson QC why he had missed the marks in his post- mortem, Dr Patel said: “One explanation is the effect of the embalming process. They were enhanced.” 

Mr Jackson then asked: “So you’re saying marks have appeared between your examination and the second post-mortem?” Dr Patel replied: “It would have made the skin more leathery and brought out those marks.”

He rejected Dr Carey’s conclusion that the marks were suspicious and stated that only a large mark on her shoulder – described by Dr Carey as a bite mark – warranted further investigation. Asked if he thought Dr Carey was mistaken in his conclusion that marks around Annastasia’s torso were finger-grip marks, Dr Patel said: “You can easily misinterpret these injuries.”

A surprised Mr Jackson replied: “You’re not suggesting Dr Carey misinterpreted these injuries?”

“That’s a possibility,” said Dr Patel. “I can’t exclude it. I don’t agree with Dr Carey that these were finger-grip marks.”

He also rejected Dr Carey’s conclusion that Annastasia was thrown or pushed, describing the finding as something that “can’t be proved”. 

Dr Patel said: “Whether somebody has been pushed or [whether they] fell down the stairs, that can’t be proved.” Dr Carey found that Annastasia could only have died from an “accelerated impact,” either by being thrown against a floor or wall or pushed down the stairs. 

At a trial at the Old Bailey in 2003, Annastasia’s stepmother and father were sentenced to six years in prison for child cruelty. The court heard that the girl’s stepmother, Christine Green, had tortured her out of resentment, saying she was “too pretty”. 

Annastasia had come from Jamaica a year earlier in search of a “better life” in England after her mother had become homeless. 

Dr Patel was the first pathologist to conduct a post-mortem on the body of Ian Tomlinson, the newspaper vendor who died during the G20 riots in April last year. He found Mr Tomlinson died of a heart attack, while Dr Carey, who conducted a second post-mortem at the request of the family, found he died from internal bleeding.  Dr Patel was suspended from the Home Office register of pathologists two months later.

The hearing continues.