From Private Eye No 1196 26 October-8 November 2007
MMR LEGAL AID: Mr Justice Davis has been cleared of any wrongdoing for not
disclosing that his brother was a director of Glaxo SmithKline when he
sanctioned the withdrawal of legal aid from families who claim their children
were damaged by the drug company's MMR vaccine.
The Office for Judicial Complaints (OJC) has advised more than 100 parents who
complained of the conflict of interest that the high court judge states
categorically that he was not aware at the time that his brother, Sir Crispin
davis, was a non-executive director of GSK, one of three defendant drug
companies in the MMR controversy.
But when the Eye and others asked his office about a potential conflict five
months ago, a statement was issued on his behalf which said: "In 2003, Mr
Justice Davis's brother was appointed as a non-executive director of GSK. At the
date of the hearing before Mr Justice (February 2004), the possibility of any
conflict of interest arising from his brother's position was not raised with him
and did not occur to him. If he was wrong, any possible remedy must be sought in
the court of appeal."
This is not quite the same as saying he knew nothing about it. The parents are
now asking Sir John Brigstocke, the judicial ombudsman, to investigate this
apparent inconsistency. They are also asking whether the OJC were right to
dismiss a second complaint of a possible conflict. Sir Crispin is also Chief
Executive of Reed Elsevier, publishers of the Lancet. Although the magazine
published the original controversial research by Dr Andrew Wakefield and others
at the royal Free Hospital, its editor Richard Horton had been widely quoted
just before the legal aid hearing saying the study was flawed because of an
alleged conflict of interest.