'Rogue' expert faces GMC

The GMC is considering a series of complaints against Dr Paterson

A Scottish bone specialist has denied misleading courts in England and America while giving expert evidence in child assault cases.

The General Medical Council's professional conduct committee has begun hearing a lengthy series of allegations against Dr Colin Paterson.

The GMC acted following a complaint about his evidence made by the head of the English High Court Family Division, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss.

Dr Paterson, 66, now retired after being a reader at Dundee University and an honorary consultant at Ninewells Hospital, advanced theories based on a condition known as TBBD - temporary brittle bone disease.

In a number of articles, he said this was a condition confined to babies and which normalised itself around the age of one.

Dr Paterson suggested that fractures suffered by some children were caused by TBBD, not physical assaults.

'Failed duties'

The hearing was told that he had prepared expert evidence for a case in 1996 in Arizona where a couple were facing child abuse charges relating to their three-year-old girl.

Dr Paterson put forward his evidence for the defence without seeing full medical reports or examing x-rays, a bone scan and an audiogram.

Richard Tyson, counsel for the GMC, said: "By his actions he failed to fulfil his duties as an expert witness and misled or risked misleading the jury."

In March 2001 he gave evidence in a case where a couple were fighting to stop their baby being taken into care.

He ignored evidence of bruising on the girl's body and concluded: "I would have thought it more likely than not that the fractures were caused by bone disease, probably temporary brittle bone disease."

'Rogue expert'

The judge in the case remarked that Dr Paterson had "adapted his description of TBBD as he went along".

A complaint about this and others in which he had given evidence was lodged by Dame Elizabeth.

Mr Tyson said: "Dr Paterson is a rogue medical expert who gives misleading and incorrect testimony in highly important cases involving children suffering from medical fractures."

At the start of the hearing, counsel for Dr Paterson argued unsuccessfully that it should not go ahead because of the delay in it being brought.

Dr Paterson, from Longforgan, near Dundee, faces being struck off the medical register if found to have committed serious professional misconduct.