UK court suspends Indian origin doctor’s sentence for medical negligence
London: A 35-year-old Indian-origin optometrist in the UK won an appeal against her two-year suspended jail sentence for failing to spot a life-threatening condition on a little boy that resulted in his death.
Honey Rose had performed a routine eye test on eight-year-old Vincent Barker in February 2012. She failed to spot the life-threatening condition that led to the boy's death after five months.
Rose had denied charges of gross negligence amounting to manslaughter but was found guilty after a trial at Ipswich Crown Court in London last year.
The UK Court of Appeal admitted her plea and quashed her sentence for gross negligence manslaughter.
The three-member panel ruled that there had been a "serious breach of duty" by Rose but that it did not amount to the crime of gross negligence manslaughter which resulted in her suspended sentence, which refers to a deferred custodial sentence on strict conditions.
"This decision does not, in any sense, condone the negligence that the jury must have found to have been established at a high level in relation to the way that Ms Rose examined Vincent and failed to identify the defect which ultimately led to his death," said Judge Brian Leveson, one of the three Court of Appeal judges.
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