The Probert Encyclopaedia of Medicine

MEADOW'S LAW

Meadows Law is the ludicrous theory, by Sir Roy Meadows, that three or more cot-deaths within a family are evidence of the mother murdering the children, and claiming their deaths to be natural. 'One baby's death is a tragedy. Two is suspicious. Three is murder.' Despite gene evidence to show that inherited immuno-deficiency is common, Meadows Law has been used to convict several women of murder in the United Kingdom, even though in 2001 Sally Clark was cleared of murder after an appeal court ruled that Meadow's claim that the probability of a second cot death occuring in a family like hers was 1 in 73 million, was absurd, and in 2003 Trupti Patel was acquitted at Reading Crown Court of charges of killing her three children who died of natural causes, though again Sir Roy Meadows was called as a prosecution witness.
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