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Pathologist admits: I was arrogant over women's deaths
Sophie Goodchild, Health and Social Affairs Correspondent12 Jun 2009
A former Home Office pathologist has admitted he was "incredibly arrogant" in wrongly maintaining that two women were murdered despite a weight of evidence against him.
Dr Michael Heath resigned from the Home Office register in 2006 after he was criticised at a government disciplinary hearing for his work on the deaths of Mary Anne Moore and Jacqueline Tindsley.
He no longer works in forensic pathology, but is facing a General Medical Council hearing in which his fitness to practice is being questioned.
Dr Heath carried out hundreds of examinations as a pathologist, including the murders of Lin and Megan Russell in 1996 and the death of Stuart Lubbock, who was found in a pool at Michael Barrymore's home in 2001.
However, he admits his conduct in the Moore and Tindsley cases was inappropriate and inadequate.
Kenneth Fraser was cleared in 2002 of killing his partner Miss Moore, 56, at their south London home in May 2001 after her body was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs.
Dr Heath gave evidence that her fatal injury was not caused by a fall but through an impact with a sharp-edged surface or object.
He has since conceded it was unreasonable to exclude the possibility of an accidental death.
Dr Heath was called in to examine Miss Tindsley, 55, whose body was found in her bed at home in Lowestoft, Suffolk, in March 2002.
Her partner Stephen Puaca was jailed later that year for her murder following Dr Heath's evidence she was asphyxiated.
In November 2005 the conviction was quashed as the Court of Appeal heard from seven pathologists that there was no pathological evidence to support his view.
Dr Heath told the GMC panel, sitting in Manchester: "It was quite apparent I had been incredibly arrogant. It was not in the interests of justice."
The hearing continues today.
