Doctor admits she had 'no evidence' for child abuse claim
that children had been drugged by two nursery nurses falsely accused of child abuse, a disciplinary hearing heard today.The General Medical Council (GMC) heard testimony Camille De San Lazaro made during an earlier legal hearing in which she admitted making unsubstantiated allegations when helping families make compensation claims in relation to the false child sex abuse accusations.Dr Lazaro faces a charge of serious professional misconduct over her involvement in investigating child sex abuse claims at the Shieldfield nursery in Newcastle.Nursery nurses Dawn Reed and Christopher Lillie were charged with sex abuse after another worker at a different nursery in the city pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting some of the children in his care. Although the pair were acquitted, Newcastle council set up an inquiry into the allegations, which published a report falsely accusing them of sexually abusing dozens of children.The nursery nurses successfully sued the council for libel and under cross-examination in the trial Dr Lazaro admitted her accounts of abuse had been “overstated, exaggerated and emotive”.Further details from the libel trial emerged today when the hearing was read extracts from the transcripts where the consultant paediatrician admitted she had included unsubstantiated allegations in compensation applications.The hearing heard she had written that drugs had “almost certainly” been involved in abuse. It emerged she had agreed with the libel trial judge that she had “no proper basis to say that”.The doctor, based at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria infirmary, has worked in child protection for 30 years, and is also a senior lecturer at Newcastle university.
