by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (May 5th 2011)
The Dream Witness that Became a Nightmare
Forensic pathology has endured a torrid five years. Paula Lannasʼ competence left much to be desired, but she fought off attempts to bring her before a tribunal through legal actions. Nevertheless, she was discretely removed from the Register of Home Office Pathologists anyway. The lessons were learned.
Michael Heathʼs tooth and nail fight to avoid the hearing failed. Consequently, in the summer of 2006 Heath faced the Home Office Pathology Advisory Board tribunal, chaired by John McGuinness QC. Heathʼs peers, Peter Ackerley, Dr Bob Bramley and Professor Thomas Krompecher completed the panel.
Heath was represented by Jean Ritchie QC, but the choice of counsel for the Home Office Pathology Delivery Board, which brought those proceedings, Charles Miskin QC, raised eyebrows. Why? Because another of Miskinʼs claims to fame was that he had relied on Heath as a credible expert witness in a murder case, but Heath had made a mess of the case, which helped to deny a young man on trial for his future a fair trial. Miskin had prosecuted Neil Sayers, who was a 19 year-old agriculture student at Hadlow College in Kent when his friend Russell Crookes met a grisly end.
Chastened
Miskin destroyed Heathʼs credibility during the tribunal, securing an important finding against him that he was inflexible once he had made up his mind even if the evidence said otherwise. He also paid no attention to the opinions of colleagues. Facing removal from the Register of Home Office Pathologists, Heath resigned after he had been found guilty.
A suitably chastened Heath faced another disciplinary hearing three years later. Heath was still able to practice as an expert, albeit not a forensic pathologist. He was no longer in the top league of British pathologists, but unlike his erstwhile colleague, Lannas, Heath remained a registered doctor, able to practice as an expert. The disciplinary hearing of the General Medical Council (GMC) reached its decision in June 2009. Heath remains registered by the GMC as an expert histopathologist.
A Kafkaesque Prosecution
Sayersʼ case is therefore very important. He has been in prison for over a decade, partly due to the poor quality pathology of the now disgraced Michael Heath, who had demonstrated a lack of professional courtesy by failing to provide information to Sayersʼ pathologist Peter Jerreat. Heathʼs work also adversely influenced other forensic scientistsʼ work.
Heathʼs conduct in this case left much to be desired, making a scientific and legal maze of the case that Sayers had no chance of resolving. He had to understand the ins and outs of forensic pathology, fire-damage and related issues, as well as forensic entomology, forensic botany and other scientific disciplines too. And if, somehow, he managed to achieve that, he had to instruct his lawyers to investigate these issues and hire the relevant experts.
If, by some miracle, Sayers, a young man of average intelligence achieved all that, it would still have counted against him. After all, why would a young student at Hadlow Agricultural College have such an interest in forensic science and knowledge of state of the art techniques?
He would have been accused of having an unnatural interest in such techniques. No doubt he was planning the perfect crime! So if he didnʼt know, it was his fault as instructing lawyers to conduct the required tests is his responsibility, but if he did, it was also his fault as that meant he possessed knowledge that no young man had any business knowing, so he must be guilty. Franz Kafkaʼs Joseph K stood a better chance of receiving a fair trial.