A consultant paediatrician last week admitted submitting “overstated, exaggerated, and emotive” medical reports on children to support compensation claims for sexual abuse. Camille San Lazaro, a child abuse specialist, made the admission at a General Medical Council hearing in Manchester, where she faces charges of serious professional misconduct. Dr Lazaro examined 53 children from Shieldfield nursery in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1993-4 and wrote reports for the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority supporting their claims for compensation.
Two nursery nurses, Christopher Lillie and Dawn Reed, were accused of abuse in a 1998 report by a four person team commissioned by the council, which relied on Dr Lazaro's opinions. A high court judge ruled in 2002 that the abuse had never happened and awarded the two £200 000 ($378 000; €294 000) libel damages each against the report's authors. The affair is thought to have cost Newcastle City Council, which paid the damages and costs, £5m. The home secretary also agreed to pay compensation to Mr Lillie and Ms Reed for their time in prison.
Dr Lazaro was referred to the GMC after admitting in the libel case that her reports to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority had been “exaggerated and overstated” and that she had been acting as an “advocate” to help parents. She accepted that discrepancies in one child's medical notes were a “substantial professional lapse.”
In his libel judgment, Mr Justice Eady said that the authors of the council commissioned report “clearly fell under the spell” of Dr Lazaro, who was “unbalanced, obsessive, and lacking in judgment.” He criticised her for “throwing objectivity and scientific rigour to the wind in a highly emotional misrepresentation of the facts.”
The fitness to practise hearing at the GMC heard that criminal charges were brought against the two nursery nurses following examinations by Dr Lazaro, but they were acquitted at trial after a judge rejected video evidence and the Crown Prosecution Service offered no further evidence.
During the hearing, which is expected to last up to two weeks, Dr Lazaro conceded that there were inconsistencies between medical records and medical reports. She admitted at the libel trial that there was no basis for a claim that she included in a report that abuse “almost certainly” involving drugs, had taken place. She also conceded she had written a report from memory rather than medical records.
Dr Lazaro denies “inappropriate, irresponsible, and unprofessional conduct.” She was initially suspended from her post as consultant paediatrician at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle but was allowed to return to work as a general paediatrician. She is also a senior lecturer at Newcastle University. She has published widely in the area of sexual abuse and was awarded Order of the British Empire in 1999 for services to the care of sexually abused children.