'I do not believe in killing babies' (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

'I do not believe in killing babies'

A councillor's comments about guillotines and babies sparked outrage across Swindon. Here Owen Lister explains what happened and answers readers' letters on the subject:

Many of you will have read, either in the local or national papers, lurid opinions regarding what is alleged to have been said by me at a meeting of the Children's Act Scrutiny Task Group on September 8.

At a meeting on the following day I was asked to sign an apology for the offence I had apparently caused but to say no more until the Standards Committee had considered the matter. This I agreed to do.

A week later and as a result of the activities of some Labour councillors the story broke in the press, both locally and nationally.

As a result I was able for the first time to refute the allegations that had been made.

Sadly, the damage had been done and it is well nigh impossible to undo it.

As a result I have been suspended from the Conservative Group on the council pending the decision of the Standards Board.

It is in these circumstances that I feel I owe people an explanation as to how all this has happened.

At the meeting on September 8 we were informed that arrangements had been made to send three or four severely disabled children to a home in Cornwall.

I was appalled to learn of this separation of these children from their parents, particularly their mothers, with whom there was almost certainly some bond.

And I stated that "they might just as well be guillotined" to illustrate the finality of this severance, by more than 100 miles, from their parents.

The words were not to be taken literally but as a measure of my disgust regarding these arrangements.

No one present questioned this statement and it was not until the following day at a meeting with the deputy leader of the council that I learnt my remarks had been interpreted as meaning that I was advocating the killing of these children.

In retrospect I can understand how this misinterpretation of my remarks may have come about, though I am astonished anyone should seriously imagine I was advocating the murder of these children.

And I am astounded I was not questioned about this at the time if that was what people really thought I meant.

With this in mind may I explain the thinking behind my remarks, and the experience on which they were based?

For many years prior to my retirement I was medical officer to a home for mentally sub-normal adults and one of the striking features of this experience was how seldom, if ever, these people were visited by friends or relatives.

They had been tucked away in a secure environment where they could do no harm for the remainder of their lives.

I often wondered how I might view the situation if I were one of them, though it is not easy to put oneself in the mindset of a mentally sub-normal person.

In addition, I happen to know a severely disabled girl who is cared for devotedly by her parents here in Swindon.

These children mostly have very limited, if any, means of communication. Their knowledge is almost impossible to assess but is essentially limited to their experience of life, which is in turn limited to the environment in which they live and contact with their carers, in particular their mother.

The quality of their lives is essentially conditioned by this very limited experience.

The older the children are, the greater their experience within these very limited parameters.

Moving such children from a caring environment that they have come to know is traumatic for them, more so if contact with the carers they know is ended.

This, sadly, is the inevitable result of moving such children more than 100 miles from their homes

Such a transfer not only produces a physical separation from their parents but a devastating blow to the quality of their lives, which seems to me to be maximally undesirable.

I do not doubt that they will be well cared for in their new home and that, in time, they may develop some bonding with their new carers, but the distance from their parental home makes for an undesirable severance from their parents.

In the days that have followed I have received a good deal of "hate mail" and have replied to all who gave their addresses, setting out the true facts.

I have also received a number of messages of support from a variety of sources (some very unexpected), which has been very heartening and much appreciated.

On mature reflection it seems to me that my apology and resignation as deputy mayor, together with my offer of resignation from the Group without any explanation by me for what had actually happened, has tended to confirm that I was indeed guilty of advocating the killing of these disabled children, an idea that is totally untrue and repugnant to me.

It seems to me the real villains in this matter are members of the Labour Party who have spread this story to gain some political advantage and blacken my name without any thought of the upset that would be caused to thousands of parents of disabled children, as well as some disabled children themselves.

After more than 40 years in medical practice, caring for people, I can assure you I neither believe in, nor advocate the killing of disabled children, or indeed anyone else.

To those of you who have been upset by what you have read I can only offer my sincere apologies.

Dr CO Lister

Whitworth Road, Swindon

All correspondence on this matter is now at an end until the results of the Standards Board is known Editor