EPILOGUE
Written by Felicity McCall.
The founder, inspiration and guiding spirit behind
the Portia campaign, the journalist and reformer Ken Norman died, aged 82, in October
2003. Ken lived long enough to see Sally Clarke acquitted on appeal of the murder
of two of her three sons, and to see the formerly invincible paediatrician Sir Roy
Meadow discredited and his often-quoted theory on cot death that "one is a tragedy,
two is suspicious and three is murder", utterly quashed and disproved.
Two months
later, another mother whose case had been championed by Portia, Angela Cannings,
was also cleared at the Court of Appeal of murdering her two baby sons. Forty year
old Mrs Cannings, a shop assistant, had been convicted at Winchester Crown Court
in April 2002 of murdering 7 week old Jason in 1991 and 18 week old Matthew in 1999.
Defence lawyers claimed the prosecution evidence given by Sir Roy Meadow was misleading.
A BBC investigative journalism team which reported on her case throughout, traced
a genetic link to Mrs. Cannings' family in Ireland, where there had been an almost
identical tragedy.
After she was released, the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith QC
called for a halt to all prosecutions where there was a possibility that SIDS, or
cot death, was the cause. Lord Goldsmith said he shared the unease of relying solely
on expert evidence where the cause of an unexplained death is in dispute. He said
"To date, some 258 convictions over the past 10 years have been identified involving
the murder, manslaughter or infanticide of an infant aged under two by its parent
or parents. These cases will be considered further as a matter of urgency to establish
whether they bear the hallmarks of a conviction which the Court of Appeal judgement
in Angela Cannings' case has indicated may be unsafe." "I am particularly concerned",
he added, " about cases where the defendant has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment
which is still being served. We have so far identified 54 such cases. These will
be accorded the highest priority."
So, Sally Clarke free on appeal because the evidence
against her contained "fallacious statistical material" (and evidence of an infection
had been withheld - Ed); Trupti Patel spared the agony of a prison sentence as she
was acquitted of murdering three of her infants; Angela Cannings freed on appeal
after 20 months. On 20th January 2004 came what might yet be Ken Norman's greatest
legacy - the formal announcement that the review of hundreds of similar cases is
beginning.The implications are massive - years wrongly spent in prison, deprived
of family; siblings taken from their parents to grow up in adoptive homes; possible
millions of pounds in financial compensation which can never repay the emotional
loss. The so called expert paediatricians whose intent seems always to have been
to secure convictions are discredited and disgraced beyond recovery.
Let us hope no
parent will ever again have to undergo the torment of Sally Clarke, Trupti Patel,
Angela Cannings and so many, many more, and as genetic research continues, infants
at risk of cot death can be identified and preventative measures found. The campaign
goes on. Thank you, Ken.
Editor's note: Portia also recognises the immense effort
put in by the defence teams in these and other cases and the work done by all other
campaigners. Not least Penny Mellor who was even deprived of her own liberty for
a period of time. Let us all hope that they do not just stop short after examining
MSbP convictions but also the so-called SBS (shaken-baby-syndrome) cases and any
other case where only expert opinion was used to convict the accused. Experts are
rarely as expert as they are made out to be, witchcraft trials really must come to
an end.
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