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Mother
convicted of baby murders 'on false evidence'
By Sandra Laville
(Filed: 18/07/2000)
A SOLICITOR who was jailed for life for murdering her two baby sons
within 14 months of each other launched an appeal to clear her name
yesterday, alleging that evidence from a Home Office pathologist was
unreliable and at times "just plain wrong".
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Sally
Clark: was in 'complete disbelief' at losing two babies
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Sally Clark, 36, has always denied killing 11-week-old Christopher and
eight-week-old Harry. It was alleged that Christopher was smothered
to death and Harry was smothered or shaken to death at the family home
in Wilmslow, Cheshire.
The jury at Chester Crown Court last November was told that both babies showed signs of previous
abuse. In Christopher's case there was old blood in the lungs and
in Harry's a rib fracture and oxygen starvation to part of the brain,
both of which Clark is challenging at the Court of Appeal.
She was convicted on a majority verdict after the jury
was told that the chance of two cot deaths occurring within the same
affluent family was 73 million to one. Julian Bevan, QC, for Clark,
told Lord Justice Henry, sitting with Mrs Justice Bracewell and Mr
Justice Richards, that he would put forward fresh statistical evidence
to challenge these odds.
He would also provide new medical evidence to show that
the findings of Dr Alan Williams, a Home Office pathologist who
conducted post-mortem examinations on both babies, were not reliable or
accurate. He said: "The key issue in each case is whether the
Crown could exclude death from natural causes."
The evidence of Dr Williams in both cases was "a
mainstay to the Crown's case" but the appeal case was that his
findings were not reliable and in Harry's case were "unconfirmed or
just plain wrong".
Christopher died in December 1996 and Harry in January
1998. Clark told the jury that she had found both children "limp
and lifeless" and was in "complete disbelief" at losing
two babies. Mr Bevan said that in Christopher's case the central
questions involved marks to the baby's body, an injury to part of his
gum and evidence of old bleeding in his lungs.
In the case of the marks or bruises on the body, the
issue was whether they may have been caused after death, during the
resuscitation attempt, something which Dr Williams initially believed.
He added that with regard to the injury to the child's inner lip, the
defence said that it may have been caused when trying to get a tube
into the baby's mouth but expert medical opinion was divided on this.
At trial Stephen Clark said that his son suffered a nose
bleed 10 days before his death while on a trip to London, a visit
arranged to show off the baby to their friends. Medical opinion was
divided but two medical experts told the jury the blood in the lungs
could have come from a nose bleed.
It was alleged by the Crown that the nose bleed was
evidence that Clark had attempted to suffocate Christopher. But Mr
Bevan said that evidence from Mr Clark that the bleed started half an
hour after his wife left to go shopping disputed this. If it had been
caused by a suffocation attempt the bleed would have begun soon after
the trauma, according to medical experts.
The "most crucial issue" in relation to the
death of Harry, said Mr Bevan, was the finding of a swollen spinal
cord. "All the experts agreed that if the spinal cord had been
swollen that cord must have been subjected to some form of trauma and
if that is right there was only one candidate and that was the
appellant."
But he said that medical experts were divided over
whether the spinal cord was swollen. Dr Williams's evidence was crucial
in both cases, he said. "It is my submission that the verdict of
the jury must have hinged to a very large extent upon the accuracy and
reliability of his evidence."
Mr Bevan said two statisticians would challenge the
Crown's case that the chances of two cot deaths in one family were one
in 73 million. He said that the statistic was not accurate. "It
was simply not true."
The appeal, expected to last five days, continues.
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