Pathologist Dr Freddy Patel who failed to spot abuse is suspended

Published: 09 September, 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS

A PATHOLOGIST who carried out hundreds of post mortems on Camden residents will no longer be used by the borough’s coroner after being suspended by a regulatory panel.

Dr Freddy Patel, 63, was found guilty of misconduct and professional deficiency by an independent panel following a fitness-to-practise hearing at the General Medical Council in Euston. 

He was suspended  from carrying out routine post mortems for three months.

It follows the panel’s investigation into three cases dating from 2003 to 2005. Dr Patel will also be barred from working as an expert witness in suspicious death cases.

In one of the cases, the panel heard how he had failed to spot signs of abuse on five-year-old Islington girl, Annastacia Williams, whose parents were later jailed for child cruelty. 

Dr Patel did not record injuries, including finger grip marks and others apparently caused by a fork. Annastacia’s body later had to be exhumed. 

Dr Patel acknowledged at the hearing that the injuries were “clearly visible,” as they were described by a second pathologist, but said they had been “enhanced” by embalming fluid to show up on the second opinion. They had been absent in the first post mortem, he said.

Dr Andrew Reid, the coroner at St Pancras Coroner’s Court in Somers Town, said: “We have reviewed Dr Patel’s position in the light of the outcome of the hearing, and subject to any future hearings. With effect from Friday, September 3 2010 Dr Patel is no longer instructed, requested or directed to perform autopsies under The Coroners’ Act 1988 by HM Coroner for The Inner North District of Greater London (Camden, Hackney, Islington and Tower Hamlets).”

The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), a regulatory body for pathologists on the Home Office register, suspended Dr Patel from conducting suspicious death post mortems last year.

A spokesman said: “The Pathology Delivery Board will consider the findings of the GMC and in the meantime Dr Patel remains suspended from the register.”

A statement issued on behalf of Dr Patel by his lawyers on Friday said: “It would be inappropriate for Dr Patel to comment at this stage given the possibility that he may be asked to give evidence by the coroner at the inquest into Ian Tomlinson’s death. Dr Patel also needs time to consider the GMC’s decision with his advisers.”

An NPIA spokesman said rules governing pathologists have been tightened following Dr Patel’s case. Forensic pathologists will now carry out “no less” than 20 and “no more” than 95 forensic post mortems in any 12-month period, to ensure quality is not affected by “over work” or “under use”.

The GMC was told at the start of the hearing in July its bid to introduce an additional case had been rejected on legal grounds, after it emerged that it had taken almost eight years to inform Dr Patel it was investigating a case.

The GMC had wanted the panel to consider Dr Patel’s work in the case of Sally White, a prostitute murdered in 2002 by Anthony Hardy, the serial killer known as  the “Camden Ripper”. 

Dr Patel had judged that Sally’s death in Hardy’s Camden Town council flat had been due to “natural causes”.  But at his trial in 2003, Hardy pleaded guilty to murdering her.

Simon Jackson QC, the GMC’s barrister, had argued that it was “in the public interest” that the case be adjudicated on.

The GMC first began looking at the case of Ms White, in 2005 but waited until 2010 before ­presenting Dr Patel with its evidence.