A consultant paediatrician who admitted exaggerating a report on alleged child abuse was cleared of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council this week. Camille San Lazaro behaved in an “inappropriate, irresponsible, and unprofessional” way, but her actions did not cross the threshold of serious misconduct, a GMC panel held after a three week hearing in Manchester. Dr Lazaro, a consultant at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne, was reported to the GMC after she admitted producing an “overstated, exaggerated, and emotive” report to back up compensation claims by children who had attended the city's Shieldfield Nursery to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. Her admission was made while giving evidence at the trial about a libel action brought by two former nursery nurses who were found to blame for the abuse by an independent inquiry set up by Newcastle City Council. The two, Christopher Lillie and Dawn Reed, won £200 000 ($368 000; € 291 000) libel damages each from the inquiry team for being wrongly branded paedophiles, after the judge, Mr Justice Eady, ruled that the abuse had never happened. During his judgment, the judge described Dr Lazaro as “unbalanced, obsessive, and lacking in judgement,” and her report as a “shambles.” Clearing Dr Lazaro of serious professional misconduct, the panel's chairman, Ian Neale, told her, “In relation to the eight children cited during this hearing, your actions have been found to be inappropriate in relation to seven, irresponsible in relation to six, and unprofessional in relation to five. “You have accepted that the report was overstated, exaggerated and emotive. In relation to this report your admitted conduct has been found to be inappropriate, irresponsible, and unprofessional. “In such a professional report there was a need for measured language, and your failure to use such language may have undermined the content. Further, this had the potential to affect the claimants adversely. “But the panel has received considerable evidence of the difficulties you were experiencing at the time of the Shieldfield crisis. It has heard that you were a sole practitioner with insufficient resources struggling to cope with an excessive caseload. Despite the support you derived from other colleagues in the field nationally, you were at risk of being professionally isolated as the sole permanent consultant responsible for the service.”