Dozens of murder cases could be reopened after a leading Home Office pathologist was criticised in a disciplinary judgment yesterday which is likely to lead to him being struck off the register.
The tribunal ruled that Michael Heath, a Home Office pathologist for 14 years, bungled postmortem investigations into the deaths of two women which led to their partners being wrongly tried for murder. After a six-week hearing the Home Office advisory board found that in the cases of Mary Anne Moore and Jacqueline Tindsley, Dr Heath's professional performance fell short of the standards required of forensic pathologists by the home secretary. He refused to back down on his view that the two women had been murdered despite mounting evidence to the contrary from other pathologists.
Dr Heath has been involved in hundreds of postmortem examinations and criminal cases, including that of Lin and Megan Russell, murdered by Michael Stone in Kent, and Stuart Lubbock, who was found drowned in Michael Barrymore's swimming pool.
Criminal defence lawyers said they would now be reviewing all the cases in which Dr Heath was involved. He was examined for his role in two murder cases. Steven Puaca was jailed at Norwich crown court in 2002 for killing Miss Tindsley, 55. His conviction was quashed last November by the court of appeal. Kenneth Fraser faced an Old Bailey trial, also in 2002, for murdering Miss Moore, 56, but was cleared.

www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1857989,00.html