Fair do's.

One of the news stories while I was away concerned the reinstatement of Professor Meadow who was struck off by the GMC following a woman being wrongly convicted of killing her children based mainly on his expert evidence. Although Professor Meadow clearly carries a great deal of responsibility for what happened, he was, I feel, made a scapegoat for failings in the court procedures which were nothing to do with him. The evidence which clearly made a great impression on the jury, and which may well have clinched their guilty verdict was his statement that the odds on two cot deaths occurring in the same family were 73 million to 1. Quite apart from any other considerations, this was a basic statistical error, somewhat similar to what is known as the "gambler's fallacy". But the point is that Professor Meadow was not, and as far as I am aware never put himself forward as an expert in statistics - his field of expertise was paediatrics, and it was on this basis that he was called as a witness. So why (a) was he allowed to give evidence as an expert witness on a matter outside his field, (b) why was this not challenged by the defence, and (c) why did the Judge not instruct the jury that this statement should not be treated as the opinion of an expert? Professor Meadow was asked a question, and gave an honest, if mistaken answer. To hold him solely responsible for the consequences was unfair.