Baby inquest halted over ‘NHS bid to hide blunder’
AN INQUEST has been halted amid allegations that NHS lawyers tried to cover up a hospital’s blunders that led to the death of a TV actor’s newborn son.
The coroner is now considering whether to bring in the Crown Prosecution Service after being told the lawyers may have removed crucial evidence from a midwife’s statement.
The inquest heard that The Tudors actor Jamie King’s son Benjamin was born by emergency caesarean at the Royal United Hospital in Bath on May 5, the day after a scheduled caesarean was postponed. A hospital inquiry found the postponement was the wrong decision.
Benjamin was starved of oxygen in the womb and left severely brain damaged.
Mr King, 35, who also appeared in Call
‘Removed from my statement’
the Midwife, and his wife, Canadian actress Tamara Podemski, 38, decided to switch off his life support machine when he was five days old after being told he would grow up with severe disabilities.
Avon coroner Maria Voisin stopped the inquest after hearing that Eileen Dack, a midwife at the hospital, had told the on-duty registrar that Miss Podemski’s c-section should have gone ahead as planned. When asked under oath why there was no record of the conversation, she said it was ‘removed from my statement’ by the NHS trust’s legal team.
The coroner said the allegation was very serious and could amount to perverting the course of justice. The inquest at Flax Bourton was adjourned to January while she decides whether to refer the case to the CPS to consider criminal charges.
The hearing was told that after Miss Podemski’s c-section was downgraded she was sent home to Frome, Somerset. Hours later she woke with stomach pains and was taken to the RUH by ambulance. Her baby was born and transferred to St Michael’s Hospital in Bristol, where doctors told her Benjamin had been starved of oxygen for two hours after the placenta failed. He died on May 10.
Yesterday Mr King said he was horrified at allegations of evidence tampering. He said: ‘We have learned about the darker, behind the scenes decisions that have been made.
‘Decisions that threaten the good work of honest health care professionals, as well as the safety of their patients. Blatant disregard for the truth is in complete opposition to the NHS’s ‘‘safer maternity care action plan’’ which encourages lessons to be learned from mistakes.’
Mr King played Thomas Wyatt in The Tudors. He also appeared in US TV series Mad Men in 2009 and the 2011 spy film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Helen Blanchard, director of nursing and midwifery for the RUH, said: ‘We regret the delay in this extremely distressing process. We respect the coroner’s decision to adjourn the inquest and will co-operate fully with her directions.
‘We are unable to comment further while proceedings continue.’