Shaken Baby and unsafe convictions

Vitamin D Deficiency crisis in Southern Australia

2012-01-30T23:37:00.001-08:00

http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2012/01/31/304715_lifestyle.html

Current vitamin D deficiency testing not accurate

2012-01-30T09:18:00.001-08:00

http://www.labmanager.com/?articles.view/articleNo/6781/article/New-Standard-for-Vitamin-D-Testing-to-Ensure-Accurate-Test-Results

BBC Radio 4 Listen again Shaken Baby SIDS and Vit D Deficiency

2012-01-25T23:56:00.003-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/default.stm

BBC Radio 4 Listen again Shaken Baby SIDS and Vit D Deficiency

2012-01-25T23:56:00.001-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/default.stm

Vitamin D Rickets, Shaken Baby and BBC Radio 4 Today Programme

2012-01-25T00:02:00.000-08:00

Please tune in tomorrow morning when you will hear the evidence of how Vitamin D deficiency has been so ignored so as to to undermine the criminal justice system to such an extend that it is mind blowing.

Have the pathologists finally found the Holy Grail of medicine? Is vitamin D deficiency the key to so many infant deaths?

Finally, it took Jayden Wray to die and his parents to be prosecuted and then cleared before the medical profession sat up and took notice and the government to finally do something. Outrageous.

Shaken Baby syndrome breaking down the myths the Annie Li case

2012-01-18T08:29:00.000-08:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_ParentingResource/annie-li-shaken-baby-case-highlights-difficult-diagnoses/story?id=15371143#.TxbyXaV6-8A

Jayden Wray

2012-01-06T13:20:00.000-08:00

It's a sad indictment to the current state of our so called health services that Jayden Wray died as a direct result of a policy failure that costs nothing in comparison to say testing my cholestoral levels, however that isn't the only thing that emerged from this case. The utterly disgraceful and immoral behaviour of those involved is staggeringly corrupt. I single out pathologists who think it's OK to treat babies as their own personal play grounds, even more offensive was the morally bankrupt behaviour of Dr Mark Peters, so called paediatric insensitivity at GOSH. Peters and Southall have been cut from the same cloth, this time though, I am armed with the evidence to do something about it. So Dr Mark Peters, guess what, you bounced to the top of the list. Just what does brain dead mean as a matter of LAW in the UK? Jayden Wray was never yours, neither do you have any psychic abilities ..... So so so David!

Murder trial highlights return of Dickensian killer - health - 05 January 2012 - New Scientist

2012-01-05T06:56:00.000-08:00

Murder trial highlights return of Dickensian killer - health - 05 January 2012 - New Scientist

Vitamin D deficiency Jayden Wray and the tip of a very nasty iceberg

2011-12-19T02:32:00.000-08:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2075884/Parents-guard-accusations-babies-shaken-death-continue-grow.html

The disturbing reason why a growing number of parents are being falsely accused of shaking their babies to death

By SUE REID

Last updated at 10:41 PM on 18th December 2011

Standing together in the dock of the world’s most famous criminal court stood two confused and sobbing parents, accused of the worst offence imaginable: beating and shaking their own baby to death.

According to prosecutors, four-month-old Jayden Wray was gripped and twisted so brutally that bones throughout his body shattered, while vicious blows to his head damaged his brain.

The injured baby was rushed to hospital where doctors said he could not survive. Three days later, paediatricians at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London switched off his life-support machine.

Riddled by ricketts: Jayden Wray's parents were cleared of causing his death after doctors had failed to diagnose the serious childhood bone disease

So certain were doctors and police that Jayden had been hurt by his parents that the couple were barred from their son’s bedside before he died.

They were not allowed to attend his hospital christening and lost the chance to say their last goodbyes.

This horrific story unfolded over six weeks in a panelled courtroom of London’s Old Bailey. Yet today, Jayden’s father and mother — Rohan, 22, and 19-year-old Chana — are free. The case against them was thrown out ten days ago after 60 medical and forensic experts at their murder trial disagreed over what really killed their son.

Finally, the judge told the jury to find the couple not guilty because Jayden’s post-mortem revealed he had rickets, a serious childhood bone disease which had once been eradicated in this country nearly a century ago.

Rickets is linked to a lack of vitamin D, which the body synthesises from sunlight or absorbs from eating foods such as oily fish and eggs.

The disease causes the skulls of children to weaken and their bones to easily break — symptoms which closely mimic those of a deliberately shaken baby.

Rohan and Chana were found not guilty of murdering their baby Jayden Wray, and it was discovered he had ricketts

Hospital doctors in Jayden’s case, it transpired, had missed a vital clue when the baby got sick and then died: his mother, Chana, had so little vitamin D in her body that Jayden did not receive the vitamin while inside her womb or when she breastfed him.

After the case, the Wrays’ lawyer Jenny Wiltshire said: ‘These parents have been through hell. They can now grieve for the son they loved and cherished.’

Yet theirs is a case which has profound implications for all families. For it serves to highlight a growing medical problem — one which is not only leading to false allegations of abuse against innocent parents, but which is endangering the health of children right across Britain.

As Jenny Wiltshire said: ‘The real criminality here is that if the money spent on bringing this case had been used to tell all breastfeeding mothers to take vitamin D supplements, Jayden’s death wouldn’t have occurred.

‘Rickets, which is now back to epidemic proportions, would have been wiped out.’

Chana gave birth to Jayden when she was 16

Indeed, a growing number of experts believe that Britain is in the grip of a childhood rickets crisis on a scale not seen since Victorian times, when children working long hours in the factories and the mines were particularly vulnerable to the ailment.

The condition was largely eliminated after World War II, when the government provided free orange juice enriched with vitamin D and cod liver oil for every child in the country.

The difference today is that it is not only a disease of the poor. Those living in middle-class homes are just as likely to suffer from the condition — notorious for causing bowed legs and knock-knees — as those from the poorest inner-city estates.

Doctors at Southampton General Hospital recently found 40 per cent of children from all backgrounds being treated in the orthopaedic department had a shortage of vitamin D in their bodies — and were, therefore, prone to rickets.

The crisis, said orthopaedic consultant Nicholas Clarke, was ‘reminiscent of 17th-century England.’

The statistics speak for themselves: cases of childhood rickets have increased five-fold in 15 years.

Last year, more than 760 babies and youngsters were admitted to hospital showing signs of the condition. At the same time, recent research among primary care trusts found that the number of children under ten admitted to hospital with rickets leapt by 140 per cent between 2001 and 2009.

Doctors say the alarming rise is often due to today’s children spending large periods of time indoors playing computer games and watching television.

At the same time, many parents worry about exposing their children to sunlight — due to the repeated warnings about skin cancer — and cover them in high-protection creams, which impede the body’s ability to produce vitamin D and, in turn, to grow strong bones.

See the light: A lack of sunlight can lead to the development of ricketts in children

If children are deprived of the vitamin, they are at great risk of developing rickets and their immune system is weakened. A diet of junk food, instead of vitamin D‑rich meat, liver, eggs and oily fish, is also blamed for the crisis.

As Gillian Killiner, of the British Dietetic Association, said recently: ‘We have taken it for granted that skin cancer is the big problem and overlooked the vitamin D side of things.

‘Children are covered up with sunblock, T-shirts and hats, and that can be important — but it can go too far. We don’t have a lot of sun in this country, and in winter you are likely to be lacking vitamin D. If you haven’t built up enough in the summer, that’s going to be a certainty.’

But until now, few have pointed out one of the most worrying aspects of the crisis: babies with a vitamin D deficiency display remarkably similar symptoms to those who have been deliberately shaken by their parents or carers. This may have led to other controversial criminal trials of parents accused of harming their children when — like the Wrays — they were completely innocent.

Stuck indoors: Children should be encouraged to put the games consoles away and get outside (posed by model)

Earlier this year, Nafisa and Mohammed Karolia, of Blackburn, Lancashire, were imprisoned for child cruelty despite their defence team arguing that vitamin D depletion led to their baby daughter’s injuries and subsequent death from broncho-pneumonia, aged seven months, in 2009.

The Karolias were accused of inflicting many terrible injuries on the child, including breaking her leg, her arm, and her rib. The police and prosecution lawyers said they had been caused by twisting, shaking and rotating the child’s limbs.

However, a very senior paediatric consultant who has examined evidence given at the trial has told the Mail: ‘It is very likely that there was an issue here with low levels of vitamin D in the mother and her daughter. But it appears that when it was mentioned in court, the prosecution nearly had a fit because they insisted this child had been shaken and abused.’

Now one coroner has become so alarmed by the rise of rickets that he has demanded the Government take action.

North London Coroner Andrew Walker sent a written notice to the Department of Health, under Rule 43 of the Coroner’s Rules, saying mothers must be warned of the dangers of not taking the vitamin D supplements.

The notice requires the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley to respond within 56 days, detailing what action his department plans to take.

Mr Walker acted after presiding over the inquest into the death of three-month-old Milind Agarwal. The baby was taken to the doctor this summer with a suspected viral infection and was sent home with saline nasal drops. A later call to another doctor by his parents resulted in them being told to give him paracetamol.

When Milind became critically ill at 10pm one evening in July this year, his parents called an ambulance and he was taken to Northwick Park Hospital in North London. A few hours later, he died of septic inflammation of the heart and associated problems.

An eminent paediatric pathologist and a leading authority on signs of child abuse, Dr Irene Scheimberg, who conducted a post-mortem examination on baby Milind, told the inquest that vitamin D deficiency may have accelerated the baby’s illness because his immune system was weakened.

Sad: Jayden Wray died at Great Ormond Street - Sue Reid is urging for ricketts in children to be more closely monitored

She said afterwards: ‘In the 21st century, in a civilised country, this is outrageous. It is only the tip of the iceberg.’

The highly respected Dr Scheimberg, based at the Royal London Hospital, added: ‘I hope that the doctors treating sick children now open their eyes to this vitamin deficiency and the problems it causes. It is a really serious issue and a matter of justice for parents who are accused of abusing their children.’

The parents of Milind, who live in Wembley, London, agreed to talk to the Mail about what happened. They do not want their real first names used in this article to protect their family’s privacy. Both parents, whom we have called Gayen and Shrina, were born in India.

Research has shown that those with darker complexions process vitamin D from sunlight much more slowly than people with paler skin
and are, therefore, prone to deficiency — and more likely to pass it on to their babies.

When I met the bereaved couple this week at their small flat, they were still raw with grief about their baby’s death. He was born in March, a wonderful first son.

A slight muscle weakness in his heart, discovered soon after his birth, was corrected with a simple procedure, and in June, Milind was given a clean bill of health.

‘We are talking about him now because it is important for other families,’ says Gayen, a computer engineer, aged 34.

‘We had no idea that the legacy of Milind would be to help spread the word that vitamin D is essential for all mothers and their babies.’
Gayen and Shrina sit on the sofa in their neat sitting room. On one shelf are the cuddly toys that lay in the cot beside Milind during his short life.

Jayden had obvious signs of ricketts. It would have left the baby with weak bones, including a weak skull

They show me his picture, a bright-eyed and smiling child looking straight at the camera. Then they remember his last hours with tears in their eyes.
Says Gayen: ‘He had had a cold, but was sleeping well on the night he died. It was very sudden when he became so ill.

‘Now we know from the coroner that he had an infection, and that the lack of vitamin D in his body meant he could not fight it properly.’

By tragic coincidence, Shrina, 29, had been told she had a vitamin D deficiency two years before Milind was born. She had a pain in her right knee and her local GP put her on vitamin D tablets. However, as she explains: ‘I had stopped taking them well before I became pregnant. No one, including the GP, the midwife or doctors at Northwick Park Hospital, ever told me to take the pills while I was pregnant or my new son would be in danger.’

Since Milind’s death, she has revisited her GP and had blood tests. They show that she has very low levels of the crucial vitamin.
‘I am now taking pills all the time and trying to get out in the sunshine,’ she explains.

By coincidence, the child pathologist Dr Scheimberg, who unravelled the truth about Milind’s death, also helped clear the parents of Jayden Wray.

The prosecution insisted that Jayden’s injuries to his skull, knee, elbow, shoulder, hip, ankle and wrist could only have been caused by him being intentionally shaken and having his head hit against something hard.

However, a post-mortem examination by Dr Scheimberg discovered Jayden’s ‘obvious sign of rickets. It would have left the baby with weak bones, including a weak skull, and led to a series of fractures’.

She is appalled at the way that these innocent parents have been treated.
‘Some people should be hanging their heads,’ she said.

‘These young parents were stopped from even saying goodbye to their child before he died, and then accused of murdering him.’

One can only hope that their cases will lead to a growing realisation among all parents — and some in the medical profession — about the return of a condition that can be prevented by a simple pill or exposure to sunshine.

Unsettling Science Shaken Baby

2011-12-17T01:15:00.000-08:00

“Babies don’t just die for no reason,” Has to be the most crass statement coming out of a DA's mouth, DUH yes they do die "for no reason" ( ie no identifiable cause) that's why you have the term SIDS. So there you have it, a baby dies and because it's dead, somebody killed it, how scientific is that!!! Oh and the proper phrasing would be, "babies don't die without a known cause" NOT "for no reason". Stupid and illiterate!

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/unsettling_science_experts_are_still_debating_whether_shaken_baby_syndrome_/

Unsettling Science: Experts Are Still Debating Whether Shaken Baby Syndrome Exists

Posted Dec 1, 2011 4:50 AM CST
By Mark Hansen

Audrey Edmunds, now 50: “I’m not the monster they made me out to be.” Photo by Keri Pickett

Is Audrey Edmunds an otherwise kind and caring wife, mother and neighborhood child care provider who snapped into a homicidal rage one day under the stress of caring for a sick baby?

Or is she an innocent woman who spent 11 years behind bars for a horrific crime she not only didn’t commit, but that may not have even been a crime?

You decide. We can’t. And neither, apparently, can the courts or the scientific community.

Fifteen years ago, Edmunds, then a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom, was convicted of reckless homicide in the 1995 shaking death of a neighbor couple’s infant daughter. She was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

In 2008, however, a Wisconsin appeals court granted her a new trial on the grounds that a shift in mainstream medical opinion as to the cause of the girl’s injuries now casts doubt on Edmunds’ guilt.

Prosecutors subsequently dismissed the case against Edmunds—not because they think she is innocent but to spare the victim’s parents the agony of having to revisit their daughter’s death.

Three years later, Edmunds’ culpability remains a hotly contested topic of conversation in criminal justice circles. And her case has reignited a fierce debate in the forensic community over the science behind what’s called shaken baby syndrome.

To be sure, the vast majority of doctors still regard it as a valid and reliable diagnosis, one whose scientific basis has been proven time and time again by decades of peer-reviewed research, clinical experience and caregiver confessions.

But a small and apparently growing number of forensic experts have begun to question many of the assumptions upon which the diagnosis rests—like whether shaking alone can produce the kind of traumatic head injuries attributed to SBS in the absence of other injuries, like a broken neck, or whether a child who has been shaken violently would immediately be rendered unconscious.

The decision marks the first time that an appeals court has questioned the scientific basis for a shaken baby conviction, and some hope the Wisconsin ruling will lead to a systematic court review of the evidence in other shaken baby cases, or even an independent examination of the underlying science by some neutral third party like the National Academy of Sciences.

Left to right: A brain MRI showing blood—indicated by the white crescent—between the skull and brain of a baby alleged to have suffered a violent shaking, photos of the right and left retinas of the same baby, a normal retina. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Trobe, MD, University of Michigan Medical System.

Shaken baby syndrome is a term coined in the early 1970s to describe what adherents contend is a characteristic set of head injuries found in infants who have been subjected to violent shaking: swelling of the brain, bleeding around the brain and bleeding in the retinas.

The theory was first espoused by a pair of pediatric specialists as a possible cause of the otherwise unexplained head injuries sometimes seen in infants with no visible signs of physical abuse. It quickly took root in the medical community.

Before long, SBS became widely accepted as a clinical diagnosis for head injuries inflicted on small children. And a nationwide educational campaign to alert the public to the dangers of shaking was launched.

In fact, SBS is now so firmly ingrained in the public consciousness that the World Health Organization has a diagnostic classification for it; the American Board of Pediatrics offers a subspecialty in it; and last year, for the fifth year in a row, the U.S. Senate designated the third week in April as National Shaken Baby Syndrome Awareness Week.

To this day, there is widespread consensus among medical professionals that shaking a baby is dangerous and often lethal. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the National Association of Medical Examiners have all issued position papers embracing the theory, although the NAME paper, which was published despite failing peer review, was later withdrawn. The Centers for Dis ease Control and Prevention publishes SBS prevention guides for public health departments and community organizations. And several states, including Ohio, New York and Texas, require prospective parents and child care providers to learn about the perils of shaking.

An estimated 1,200 to 1,400 children are injured each year by shaking, about one-quarter of them fatally, according to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, a nonprofit organization offering SBS prevention and training programs. The actual number of victims may be much higher, it says, because many such cases are misdiagnosed or go undetected.

But a growing chorus of critics says the entire theory rests on an uncertain scientific footing that continues to erode under the weight of scientific scrutiny, raising the specter that hundreds if not thousands of innocent people—parents, grandparents, baby sitters, nannies, boy friends—have faced criminal charges and even been imprisoned in the past three decades for crimes they may not have committed.

No one apparently keeps count of shaken baby prosecutions, though some experts estimate that about 200 people a year are convicted of shaking-related offenses based on the number of reported appeals. While some of those cases include corroborating medical evidence of abuse, such as cuts, bruises, burns or broken bones, others do not. And though some of the accused have admitted their guilt, others have steadfastly maintained their innocence. So Edmunds’ case was, in many respects, a typical one.

Because she loved kids—by 1995 she had two of her own and was pregnant with a third—and wanted to help out her neighbors, Edmunds quit her secretarial job and started caring for a few children in her home in the Madison, Wis., area. One of her newest charges was 7-month-old Natalie Beard.

Natalie, by all accounts a fussy baby, was particularly irritable on the day in question, Edmunds recalls. She tried to get the girl to eat, but Natalie refused, so she placed her in a car seat in the master bedroom and propped a bottle of formula in her mouth while she got her oldest daughter ready for preschool. She checked on Natalie once and everything seemed fine. But when she went back a second time, the girl was limp and unresponsive. Natalie was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where she died later that night.

Nobody saw Edmunds shake Natalie. There were no external signs of injury on the girl’s body. And Edmunds swore up and down she hadn’t done anything to harm the baby. But the doctors who treated Natalie concluded that she died from brain trauma caused by a violent shaking or a shaking with impact, citing among other things severe brain and eye damage peculiar to shaking and evidence of an impact injury to the girl’s scalp.

Edmunds defended herself as best she could. Her lawyer, Stephen Hurley, couldn’t find any experts who didn’t think Natalie had been subjected to a violent shaking, though he found one doctor who thought the girl had been shaken before she was dropped off at Edmunds’ home that morning. And the lawyer concedes that Edmunds made a terrible witness while testifying in her own defense.

“She was like a deer in the headlights on cross-examination,” he says. “I think that really hurt her.”

An army of prosecution experts testified that Natalie exhibited all the telltale signs of a severe shaking. This was no accidental shaking either, they testified, but one that was the equivalent of a fall from a two- or three-story building, or a car crash at 25 to 30 mph. And Edmunds must have done it, they insisted, because Natalie’s injuries were so severe she would have lost consciousness as soon as she was shaken.

The prosecutors also depicted the defendant as some kind of Jekyll and Hyde figure who reacted violently under the pressure of caring for a sick baby while five months pregnant and in the process of moving. She was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Keith Findley, a law professor and co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, got involved in Edmunds’ case after realizing that the medical community could not agree on whether Natalie Beard’s injuries were caused by shaking alone or other factors were involved. Photo by James Schnepf.

Edmunds’ first appeal, in 1999, went nowhere. But her luck changed in 2003 when the Wisconsin Innocence Project took an interest in her case.

The project’s co-director, Keith Findley, who teaches law at the University of Wisconsin, doesn’t remember exactly how he got involved in the case, but he does recall that both Edmunds’ trial and appellate lawyers had been deeply troubled by her conviction and were convinced of her innocence.

Findley knew very little about the subject at the time, other than what he had read about the 1997 Boston trial of British au pair Louise Woodward in the apparent shaking death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen, the first high-profile courtroom battle over a shaken baby diagnosis. (A jury ultimately convicted Woodward of second-degree murder, but the judge reduced her conviction to involuntary manslaughter and sentenced her to time served.)

But Findley soon realized there were already raging debates in the medical community about whether shaking alone could produce the head injuries Natalie Beard suffered; whether such injuries could be due to other causes, both natural and inflicted; and whether a child with the kind of injuries Natalie had could remain lucid for hours or even days before dying or becoming noticeably impaired.

Then he discovered that one of the state’s key witnesses—Robert Huntington III, the pathologist who had done the autopsy on Natalie—had written a letter in a medical journal contradicting his testimony in the case against Edmunds.

Huntington had testified at Edmunds’ trial that it was “highly probable” Natalie’s injuries were sustained while she was in Edmunds’ care. But in his letter he wrote about a 1999 case he observed in which a child with head injuries similar to Natalie’s remained lucid in a hospital for more than 15 hours before she died.

When Findley contacted Huntington and told him why he was calling, Findley says, Huntington replied, “Oh, Audrey Edmunds. What are we going to do about that?”

Armed with that information, the defense prepared a motion for a new trial on the grounds that medical research developed in the decade since her 1996 trial constituted new evidence establishing a reasonable probability that a different result would be reached the second time around.

At a hearing on that motion, Huntington testified that he was no longer sure that Natalie had been shaken or that her injuries had been inflicted while she was in Edmunds’ care. Other defense experts testified that research advances in the previous 10 years had undermined the scientific basis for SBS and legitimized the views of critics once regarded as being on the fringe.

Prosecutors, however, contended that the case against Edmunds was even stronger than it had been in 1996, saying the intervening years of study and research had only reaffirmed the cause and timing of Natalie’s death. They argued that none of the six defense experts who testified on Edmunds’ behalf could provide an alternative explanation for Natalie’s injuries. They said the evidence the defense cited as new—whether shaking alone can cause such injuries and whether a child with such injuries could experience a lucid interval—had been the subject of an ongoing debate in the medical community that began long before her first trial. And they claimed it didn’t matter whether shaking alone can produce the kinds of injuries Natalie sustained because the state had also produced evidence of an impact injury to her scalp.

A Texas Child Protective Services specialist poses with a doll used for educating about the danger of shaken baby syndrome. Photo by Tyler Morning Telegraph, David Branch.

The trial court judge found that both sides had presented credible evidence. But he denied the defendant’s motion on the grounds that the state’s evidence was more persuasive.

However, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed, saying that a “significant and legitimate debate” had developed in the medical community in the previous 10 years as to whether babies can be fatally injured through shaking alone, whether a baby with a traumatic head injury can experience a significant lucid interval prior to death, and whether other causes may mimic the symptoms traditionally associated with shaken baby syndrome. And those are issues for a jury, not a judge, to decide, the court said.

“The newly discovered evidence in this case shows that there has been a shift in mainstream medical opinion since the time of Edmunds’ trial as to the causes of the types of trauma Natalie exhibited,” the court wrote, noting that the debate reflects “a fierce disagreement between forensic pathologists who now question whether the symptoms Natalie displayed indicate intentional head trauma, and pediatricians who largely adhere to the science as presented at Edmunds’ trial.”

The decision prompted DePaul University law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer, a former child abuse prosecutor in Manhattan, to take a closer look at the science underlying the syndrome—which she, to put it mildly, found wanting.

Tuerkheimer published her findings in a 2009 Washington University Law Review article called “The Next Innocence Project: Shaken Baby Syndrome and the Criminal Courts.” She concluded that scientific advances in the past two decades have cast doubt on an entire category of SBS defendants—namely those convicted of shaking-related crimes based solely on the three key symptoms known as the “diagnostic triad.”

“While we cannot know how many convictions are ‘unsafe’ without systematic case review, a comparison of the problematic category of SBS convictions to DNA —and other mass exonerations—reveals that this injustice is commensurate with any seen in the criminal justice arena to date,” she wrote.

With the publication of Tuerkheimer’s article, an already divided scientific community appears to have become even more polarized.

Defenders of the SBS diagnosis complain that she leaves the impression that thousands of innocent people are sitting in prison due to a flawed scientific diagnosis. But critics of the SBS diagnosis, already galvanized by their legal victory in Edmunds’ case, view Tuerkheimer’s analysis as vindication of their complaint: That the research basis for shaken baby syndrome was flawed from the start.

The origins of SBS date back to 1968, when a prominent neurosurgeon conducted an experiment on rhesus monkeys to see whether brain and neck injuries would result from the whiplash forces of a simulated 40 mph rear-end car crash. The monkeys were strapped into a sled mounted on a 20-foot-long track, leaving their heads free to rotate, and the sled was struck from behind with a mechanical piston.

About a third of the monkeys suffered cerebral hemorrhages. Eleven of them also suffered injuries to the brain stem or cervical cord.

The experiment had nothing to do with babies or shaking. But in the early 1970s, two pediatric specialists, writing separately, pointed to the results as evidence for the proposition that a violent shaking with out impact, which one of them dubbed “the whip-lash shaken infant syndrome,” could cause permanent brain damage and mental retardation in infants and small children.

Ever since, critics say, the mainstream medical community has held to the belief that the presence of subdural bleeding, retinal hemorrhages and brain swelling in a child with no other injuries suggestive of an accident or abuse must have been shaken. And that the person with the child when he or she lost consciousness must have done it.

But those beliefs have been steadily undermined by subsequent research showing just the opposite, critics say.

The first big blow to conventional SBS wisdom was struck in 1987. That’s when a neurosurgery resident at the University of Pennsylvania, working with a group of biomechanical engineering students, devised an experiment designed to compare the forces generated by a violent shaking with established injury thresholds. To do so, they created models of 1-month-old babies equipped with sensors to measure acceleration, which were then shaken and slammed against both padded and unpadded surfaces.

Researchers found they couldn’t shake the dummies hard enough to generate the kind of force known to cause even a mild concussion. In fact, the most force they could muster was about one-fiftieth the amount of force generated by dropping the dummies onto a padded surface.

Another big blow to mainstream medical opinion on the subject came in 1998, when a forensic pathologist at East Carolina University School of Medicine studied the interval between injury and the onset of symptoms in 76 alleged child-abuse head injury deaths. In one-quarter of the cases, the interval was more than 24 hours; and, in four cases, it was more than 72 hours, apparently contradicting the conventional belief that a child with traumatic head injuries would be immediately symptomatic.

Further research in the past decade or so has shown that there are many other causes of the three key symptoms associated with SBS, including: short-distance falls, congenital malformations, genetic and metabolic disorders, various forms of childhood strokes, accidental injuries, infectious diseases, poisons, medical and surgical complications, and autoimmune conditions. And the list, now two pages long, continues to grow.

Some critics question the very existence of shaken baby syndrome. “There’s no such thing,” says retired forensic pathologist John Plunkett of Welch, Minn., an early critic of the diagnosis who has gone on to became a leading defense expert in shaken baby cases. “It doesn’t exist.”

Thomas L. Bohan, a lawyer and physicist who is a past president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, says he doesn’t know of a single physicist or biomechanical engineer who supports what he calls “this cockamamie notion” of shaken baby syndrome.

“It’s not something I can disprove,” he says, “but I can say that there’s no evidence to support it, and that every attempt to prove it has failed.”

In 2009, during his year as academy president, Bohan convened a blue-ribbon panel to review four areas of forensic science about which serious questions have been raised, including SBS.

The panel called for an independent investigation of the science behind the theory, to be undertaken by a qualified scientific organization amenable to both sides, which it said was “particularly crucial,” given the number of respected doctors on each side of the issue and the number of people who are sentenced to long prison terms each year for shaking-related offenses.

Another critic, Cyril Wecht, a lawyer and former Allegheny County, Pa., coroner, wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that SBS doesn’t exist. But he believes it’s one of the most overdiagnosed and misunderstood concepts in forensic science.

So much so that he wouldn’t want his four children or 11 grandchildren to baby-sit someone else’s kids.

British au pair Louise Woodward sits with her attorney, Barry Scheck, during prosecution testimony in 1997. Woodward was accused in the alleged extreme-force-injury death of infant Matthew Eappen. Photo by AP/Bizuayehu Tesfaye.

“When you come into a hospital emergency room in America today with an injured child, it’s automatically assumed you’re responsible for whatever happened until you prove otherwise,” he says.

Yet defenders insist that the scientific basis for SBS is not only sound but getting stronger every day.

Dr. Robert Block, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, says there are now decades of ever-accumulating research, clinical observations, individual case reports and other data showing that babies can be injured through shaking, impact or a combination of the two.

Critics “say you can’t shake a baby hard enough to hurt it,” he says, “which they themselves would never do because they know damn well they’d end up with a dead baby or one with significant neurological injuries if they did.”

Block and other defenders say the only controversy over SBS in the medical community is the one that has been created out of whole cloth by a small group of defense-oriented experts who ignore the known science, discount the clinical experience of doctors who treat injured kids every day, and excuse the voluminous confessional literature in an effort to sow confusion and create doubt. They call them denialists.

Denialists, to these SBS defenders, typically use rhetoric to give an appearance of legitimate and unresolved debate about matters long considered to be settled by the medical or scientific communities. Or they are simply inflexible, like those who insist—despite all evidence to the contrary—that childhood vaccinations can be linked to autism and mental retardation.

Dr. Alex Levin, a pediatric ophthalmologist in Phila delphia who studies the eye manifestations of child abuse, says the only real way to find out whether SBS exists is to shake a baby and see what happens. But short of that, all available evidence—computer models; animal models; studies of children with diseases that mimic some of the symptoms of shaking; perpetrator confessions; and child abuse victims, both living and dead—shows that babies do get injured and die at the hands of otherwise well-meaning and loving caretakers who momentarily lose their temper.

“Shaken baby syndrome is real,” he says.

Levin, who testified for the state in Edmunds’ appeal, was reluctant to discuss his testimony without reviewing his notes. But prosecutors say he testified that Natalie sustained a type of severe retinal damage that indicates either a violent shaking or a crushing injury, about which there had been no evidence.

SBS defenders also say the so-called triad of symptoms—as often described by critics—are never the sole basis for a shaken baby prosecution but only the starting point in a diagnostic process. That process includes the medical findings, X-rays, the baby’s prior medical history, law enforcement and child welfare reports, interviews with the caregiver, and various tests to rule out other possible causes of the child’s condition before a final diagnosis is made.

“The medical findings are not presented in a vacuum,” says Leigh Bishop, a senior trial attorney in the special victims bureau of the Queens County, N.Y., district attorney’s office. “Juries base their decisions on all of the facts and circumstances of a case, not on some far-fetched defense claim that a short fall, a vaccine, meningitis, the West Nile virus or CPR may have caused the child’s injuries.”

Defenders concede that there are other potential causes for each of the symptoms associated with SBS, but say there is nothing else that mimics the symptoms in all of its manifestations. And while they acknowledge that people with certain types of brain injuries may experience a lucid interval before the onset of symptoms, they say that’s not the case in babies with the kind of injuries characteristic of a violent shaking.

“It’s like pulling a plug out of the wall,” Bishop says. “Once the plug is pulled, the lights are off.”

SBS defenders also discount the significance of the decision in Edmunds’ case.

“It’s one opinion by one court,” says Randell Alexander, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida in Jacksonville and director of the state’s child protection team. “There are plenty of other courts that see it differently.”

Moreover, they suggest that the legal system facilitates irresponsible expert testimony, which they claim was the case in Edmunds’ appeal. They argue that the Wisconsin court allowed the defense great leeway: setting a low bar for the qualification of expert witnesses; allowing experts to offer opinions without stating a basis; and permitting experts to rely on inadmissible evidence, including hearsay.

And both sides say the courts often seem ill-equipped to exercise control over the admissibility of complex medical evidence.

“Legitimate controversy exists in some areas of the medical research, and reasonable medical opinions may differ over select issues,” says Brian Holmgren, a veteran child abuse prosecutor in Nashville, Tenn., who teaches other prosecutors how to handle such cases. “But seldom do these controversies reach the core science of shaken baby syndrome or attack the legitimacy of the medical criteria used to diagnose this form of child abuse.”

In the wake of the decision in Edmunds’ case, a few other courts have followed suit. But those cases are the rare exceptions. Most shaken baby convictions have not been revisited. And new cases are being prosecuted every day.

That’s why critics of SBS are calling for an objective review of the evidence on both sides, to be conducted by a credible scientific organization like the National Academy of Sciences, which published a comprehensive report on the state of forensic science in the U.S. in 2009.

Such a study is not without precedent. In 2005, Great Britain’s attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, ordered a review of 88 shaken baby cases after an appeals court had ruled that triad-only cases “cannot automatically or necessarily” lead to the conclusion that an infant has been shaken. The review identified three convictions that warranted revisiting, in addition to nine others that had previously been identified as suspect.

And in 2007, the Canadian province of Ontario convened an inquiry into 48 shaken baby convictions. The vast majority of those convictions, 44 of them, were found to be of no concern. The remaining four have been referred to the attorney general for further possible action.

Many SBS defenders say they would welcome such a study. But some suggest it would be a complete waste of time.

“To do such a study suggests there’s an issue to be dealt with,” Alexander says. “And I don’t think there are any issues to be dealt with.”

Meanwhile, Edmunds, now 50, maintains her innocence. She says she would never do anything to hurt a child. And she can’t believe that anybody could think she would.

Assistant District Attorney Shelly Rusch says all the evidence in Natalie’s death indicates a violent shaking or other “high-energy traumatic event.” Photo by James Schnepf.

“I’m not the monster they made me out to be,” she says.

Edmunds, whose husband divorced her while she was in prison, moved to the Minneapolis area after her release, where she rents a room in a friend’s house and works in a convenience store until something better comes along.

Though she’s still angry about what happened to her, she’s determined not to be bitter.

“Bitterness will destroy you,” she says.

But Dane County Assistant District Attorney Shelly Rusch—who represented the state in Edmunds’ appeal —still believes that, in a fit of rage, Edmunds killed Natalie.

Rusch says that all of the medical evidence points to either a violent shaking or some other “high-energy traumatic event” like a car crash, which didn’t happen.

“Babies don’t just die for no reason,” she says.

"some pathologists omit the fact they broke bones in order to trick the defence experts"

2011-12-13T04:16:00.000-08:00

Livenote testimony of a forensic pathologist in a shaken baby trial. Yeah, they hide the damage they do to "trick" the other side. And this is the state of the criminal justice system today!! Coz I have never ever come across, in any trial, the admission from the Forensic Pathologists that they omitted the evidence of the injuries they caused!

20 Q. And I'm not going to ask you any other detail about it

21 other than did you agree to omit from the report that

22 the occipital bone had been fractured by Dr XXXXX

23 at post-mortem examination?

24 A. Well, we didn't actually specifically say we would omit

25 it, but it wasn't put in; I accept that.

1 Q. Right?

2 A. Some pathologists do, some don't. Some use it as

3 a trick to catch out defence experts. But we didn't put

4 it in.

Dr Nathaniel Cary PM report shaken baby case in 2010

2011-12-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

Jayden Wray 2011 Nat Cary in evidence:

Sally O'Neill QC, who is defending Mr Wray, suggested to Dr Carey that if Jayden had been shaken badly, it would have caused an "immediate and catastrophic collapse of this child".

Dr Carey denied this, however.

Funny how the evidence changes to suit the pattern of collapse isn't it - so when the baby is proven to have had a lucid interval, ie was OK upon arrival at A and E having had a bus journey to get there then it isn't an immediate collapse and die, however when the ambulance is called to the house, it's the last person caring for the child who is the suspect and then all of a sudden it is an immediate collapse and die.

Buy to lie? Yeah I think so! And as for the CPS, well they need to take a long hard look at what their experts are saying on a case to case basis, go over the transcripts and PMs and you'll see the lies flying off the pages, still I'm sure it wouldn't suit to scrutinise too carefully, otherwise they wouldn't be able to prosecute any of these cases would they!

Our taxes are being used to fraudulently prosecute these cases with the likes of Cary raking it in!

I'll just keep posting the evidence up here then!

Parents cleared of murder as 'shaken baby' trial collapses | News

2011-12-09T04:34:00.002-08:00

Parents cleared of murder as 'shaken baby' trial collapses | News

Jayden Wray Rule 43 Coroners Act

2011-12-09T03:25:00.000-08:00

2. Statistical Summary
1. Rule 43 reports issued by coroners and trends
Between 1 April and 30 September 2010 coroners in England and Wales
issued a rule 43 report in 175 inquests.

As in the three previous summary bulletins, rule 43 reports were most
commonly issued in connection with hospital deaths, accounting for 26% of
reports issued (46 reports), broadly in line with the percentage in previous
publications. A further 13% of reports were issued in connection with deaths in
custody (23 reports), again broadly in line with the percentage with the third
publication. The third most frequently issued reports, accounting for 12% of
reports, were in connection with community healthcare or emergency services
related deaths (21 reports).

This is a change from the previous summary bulletins, in which the second
most common category of reports issued was in connection with road deaths.
In this summary this category accounted for 10% (18 reports). The percentage
of this category of deaths is reducing when compared to that in previous
publications.

Chana Al Alas and Rohan Wray cleared

2011-12-09T03:03:00.000-08:00

Pair cleared over baby Jayden Wray death

Two parents have walked free from the Old Bailey after being cleared of killing their four-month-old son, who was suffering from rickets.

Chana Al-Alas, 19, and Rohan Wray, 22, from Islington, north London, denied murdering their child and causing or allowing his death.

Jayden Wray died from a head injury in July 2009.

The couple, who were 16 and 19 when Jayden was born, hugged and kissed when they learned their ordeal was over.

The court heard that Jayden died from brain damage and swelling but nearly 60 medical, professional and expert witnesses were unable to agree the cause.

Sally O'Neill, defending, said Jayden was a much-loved and cared for baby and that his parents had been "pre-judged" by doctors and police.

She said no-one had known how ill Jayden, who was later found to have rickets, was.

Chana and Rohan, I cannot express my deep sense of sorrow at the terrible ordeal that you and your families have been subjected to. I can only hope that your case brings about the changes so badly needed in our broken child protection system and that Jayden's death was not in vain. Stand proud, you are, as parents, an example to us all. xxx

Now I can post up the evidence of what really went on in this case and who was ultimately responsible for the death of their beautiful much loved baby Jayden, not to mention the disgusting and, in my opinion, illegal/immoral behaviour of the MPS Stratford Team and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Every so often in this murky world of child abuse allegations, you come across a case which leaves you speechless and incensed, this is such a case, a case that should never ever have been prosecuted, a case in which the zealots lost their way and plundered the depths of what should be normal acceptable and compassionate behaviour in order to win. They are beyond contempt.

Do not believe the rhetoric, do not believe that this was about the protection of children, because the evidence proves beyond any doubt, that Jayden Wray's welfare was the very last thing on anyone's mind, this case was all about protecting "shaken baby syndrome or RADI" and the reputations of those that are so entrenched in the myths, that they have lost sight of the very children they claim they are doing this for.

This time they cried wolf once too often.

http://www.bournelocal.co.uk/news/parents_cleared_over_baby_s_death_1_3323188

Jayden Wray

2011-12-08T05:02:00.000-08:00

Nosheen Arshad full Appeal 6th December 2011

2011-12-06T00:34:00.000-08:00

COURT 5

Before

PRESIDENT OF THE QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
MR JUSTICE GRIFFITH WILLIAMS
MRS JUSTICE SHARP DBE
TUESDAY 06/12/2011
At 10:30am

200906591 D1 Nosheen Arshad

The out of control media and child abuse

2011-12-04T01:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-16021858

If you were to go on and read some of the other salacious details of this case "leaked" (during the hacking inquiry HINT) to the press, you would see why the outrage.

The problem I have is this, if, what is being said were to be true, it is doubtful the accused would have been bailed, so serious are the allegations being made in the press from a so called "insider" (surely not another cash for data" story????)

Secondly, there is so much detail relating to the couple that it won't be long before the FB vigilantes will name them. The Baby P brigade in particular.

Welcome to the UK post Peter Connelly, welcome to guilty until proven otherwise and welcome to a world of leaks and propaganda where child abuse is concerned.

And welcome to a WORLD IN WHICH THE POTENTIAL JURY POOLS ARE CONTAMINATED!

Rohan Wray and Chana Al-Alas The Perfect Parents

2011-12-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.islingtontribune.com/news/2011/dec/baby-jayden-wray-%E2%80%93-jury-told-%E2%80%98proud-happy-parents%E2%80%99

Baby Jayden Wray – Jury told of ‘proud, happy parents’

Published: December 2, 2011
by DAVID ST GEORGE

AS the murder trial of the parents of baby Jayden Wray enters its final stages this week, jurors at the Old Bailey were told how the “totally devoted” couple would never have allowed any harm to come to him.

The prosecution allege that the four-month-old suffered a series of “non accidental” shaking or shaking-impact injuries leading to multiple fractures and brain damage while at home in Holloway.

Jayden was admitted to University College Hospital in July 2009 and was transferred to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital for specialist care, where surgeons fought in vain to save his life.

Experts called by the defence lawyers for parents Rohan Wray and Chana Al-Alas have told the court that bone-wasting disease and severe ricketts were the cause of the infant’s tragic death.

His father, a mechanics student aged 19 at the time, and mother, then aged 16 – they are now aged 22 and 19, respectively – walked arm in arm outside court during breaks in the evidence on Wednesday as family friends and relatives told the court how they were regarded as model parents.

They deny charges of murder or causing or allowing the death of their son, and jurors are expected to retire to consider verdicts next week.

The couple lived on the Barnsbury estate.

Ms Al-Alas’s mother, Catrina, called to testify by her daughter’s QC, Sally O’Neill, told the jury that the couple had dated since January 2007.

They went out with groups of friends but spent a lot of time studying.

Mrs Al-Alas said that when her daughter became pregnant and gave birth to Jayden she had “no reservations that they would be capable of caring. She was a natural mother and he was a very proud father.”

She added: “The arrival of Jayden was not in any way an inconvenience. It was what they wanted.”

Jayden was “a good baby” and Mrs Al-Alas said she had “no concerns or worries” about his welfare in the couple’s hands.

Earlier, family friend and fellow churchgoer Mrs Sandra Antoine, a registered Islington Council foster carer for more than 30 years, said she had been a neighbour and had known Mr Wray since he was a child.

Mrs Antoine said he was quiet, thoughtful, polite, well-behaved and from a good home. He attended her youth club on the estate and she said she never witnessed “any anger or aggression”.

Mrs Antoine said that in July 2009 she met Mr Wray and Miss Al-Alas at a family birthday party when they had Jayden with them.

“He was smiling and gorgeous,” she recalled. “I complimented them on what a beautiful son they had.”

Mrs Antoine added “I had no concerns about their ability as parents. They were just a very happy young couple.”

Jayden Wray - Always in my thoughts

2011-12-02T02:30:00.000-08:00

To those commenting

2011-11-30T10:50:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry I am not being ignorant, but I cannot post any comments that relate to an ongoing trial it's contempt of court. And to those wanting me to post abusive comments towards defendants in certain cases on this blog, get a life and I pray you are never selected for jury service.

The truth behind what's going on in the UK Shaken Baby

2011-11-29T23:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was asked by a member of the media why it is the defence have begun to use expert witnesses outside of the UK, predominantly the USA. The answer is multi layered and complex, however the crux of the matter is this.

Experts in various fields in the UK who do not subscribe to the polarised views of the shaken baby crew, having conducted their own research and found the original science behind such allegations wanting/lacking, are afraid to testify here for fear of being reported to the GMC by their counterparts, the police, the NPIA or the CPS and ergo are bullied out of testifying
That the Americans in particular, are eminently more qualified than most UK based doctors, they come from a far more competitive background and are required to compete for jobs, (no nhs) so their expertise is, on the whole, far more expert than anyone here and they typically have several disciplines rather than the one
That the Crown get first dibs given that at the point somebody states unlawful death their meter starts running and the blank cheques are available to them as well as teams of "investigators" (HAH what a joke that is, the police) unlike the defence who have to wait for the defendant to be charged before legal aid in respect of getting experts, kicks in

It's a sad state of affairs, innocent until proven guilty no longer applies. It's guilty guilty guilty from the go get and the defence are always playing catch up in the vague hope that the police will do their job, investigate, rather than do the bidding of their masters the CPS, doing nothing other than case building, ignoring any evidence that doesn't fit.

The police should be the bridge between guilt and innocence, it is their job to properly investigate a case and present all the evidence they find, however it is now the case that the police are no longer independent investigators, they are part of the problem.

It is for the Crown to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the offence that the defendant has been charged with has merit. Sadly speculation, hypothesis, and even the saying "a momentary loss of temper" seem to be the basis upon which they proceed to court.

Time to have Coronal Inquiries as the first point of investigation, the others cannot be trusted at any level, to act with impartiality or fairness.

When shaken baby isn't shaken baby - Gorillas V Humans!

2011-11-29T01:00:00.000-08:00

So where was the "momentary loss of temper" by the first time GorilLa mother?

Oh i know, there wasn't one. funny that isn't it! this is being put down as an accident as opposed to "murder". good job mum wasn't human then isn't it!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2066385/Chicago-Lincoln-Park-Zoo-Baby-gorilla-dies-fractured-skull-days-making-debut.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

In the Mail article it states that nobody believes it was an act of aggression because there were no marks on the baby, yet when it's a human with no marks, it still means an act of aggression. Yep you're thinking, hang on why doesn't this apply to humans, well because everyone is conditioned to believe that if a baby dies and there is no known cause, somebody must done something. Welcome to the whacky world of pseudo shaken baby science!

Chicago's 'mysterious' baby gorilla death

Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo staff gleefully welcomed an endangered gorilla's offspring, only to find the infant dead — possibly at its mother's hand — nine days later

POSTED ON NOVEMBER 28, 2011, AT 3:52 PM

Bana, a 16-year-old Western lowland gorilla, holds her infant last week at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. Photo: Lincoln Park Zoo SEE ALL 56 PHOTOS

On Nov. 16, Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo welcomed a newborn Western lowland gorilla. She was the first of the endangered species to be born at the zoo since 2005, and appeared to be doing well. Nine days later, the baby gorilla, who hadn't even been named yet, was found dead. Here, a brief guide to her"mysterious" death:

What happened?
Zoo keepers found the baby gorilla's mother, Bana, a a 16-year-old first-time mother, carrying her 9-day-old child's lifeless body around their enclosure. The zoo allowed Bana to stay with her dead baby for several hours to "make peace with what had happened." Staff at the Lincoln Park Zoo note that they had worked with Bana to help her develop her baby-rearing skills and she appeared to be a "good and willing mother."

So how did the baby gorilla die?
A preliminary exam shows that the baby died from a head trauma and skull fracture. "There are no bite marks or cuts and no sign of aggression, but it is possible she may have been dropped or even sat on," says a zoo spokeswoman. If Bana killed her baby, it was most likely an accident. It happened at night when there was insufficient light for the incident to be recorded clearly by the zoo's video cameras.

Have gorillas been known to kill their infants intentionally?
Yes. Just two out of three gorilla infants survive, and the complex dynamics of gorilla tribes aren't well understood. This past May, a 7-month-old baby gorilla at the London Zoo was killed after a scuffle broke out when a male silverback was introduced to the infant and his mother. In 2010, a little gorilla at the Louisville Zoo lost part of his leg in a family skirmish. In the wild, infanticide typically occurs when the dominant male gorilla dies and mother and baby look to other gorilla groups for protection "rather than face the potential of a rival male murdering the deceased male's offspring," says the Christian Science Monitor.

Linda Carty

2011-11-28T23:32:00.000-08:00

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-british-woman-on-death-row/4od#3264661

As previously highlighted on this blog, a terrible miscarriage of justice in which the ultimate penalty is somebody's life. If this blog has done nothing else, it should at least have prompted some thought into what constitutes an ineffective criminal justice system.

The prosecution in this country rely on confession evidence from the USA, the death penalty is one hell of a persuader when it comes to copping a plea when you're innocent. Here they use the phrase "life imprisonment for murder" as the coerce!

Please watch this documentary and understand that what you see is replicated in courts across the world.

Sign the petition. State Homicide is what goes down on the death certificate of anyone executed in the USA and that is exactly what it is, murder by the state ..... and this is progress??

Write to your MP and ask them why the British Government are allowing this!

Is Shaken Baby Syndrome for real - exploding the myths of the triad

2011-11-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.thetruthaboutforensicscience.com/what-really-is-shaken-baby-syndrome-is-it-for-real/

What really is Shaken Baby Syndrome? Is it for real?
On November 4, 2010, in Pathology, by Justin J. McShane
Ihave a daughter. She just turned two. She is the love of my life. She is cute and precious and just absolutely lovable. I cannot imagine what it would be like if she were to die at any age, but especially at this age or younger. I really could not imagine if I or someone else were accused of killing her by way of Shaken Baby Syndrome (“SBS”). Without a doubt there are very few topics that bring out more understandable passion than child abuse or the death of a child. The fact finder, whether it is a Judge or a Jury, does not have the luxury of passion, but is sworn to examine the evidence critically, with skepticism and analytically.
Shaken Baby Syndrome. Is it a valid diagnosis?
The typical case involves an infant, one year old or less, who is seen with respiratory distress at the home, then sent to the hospital. The presentation is typically remarkable with notes of subdural hemorrhages with retinal bleeding, no external trauma and no report of a noteworthy fall.
First let’s talk about the current prosecution-oriented myths that surround Shaken Baby Syndrome. Then, we will employ basic and valid biomechanics and generally accepted principles of anthropometry to reality in order to expose these myths.
Well first, let’s take a look at the “loaded language” inherent in the diagnosis. It is called Shaken Baby Syndrome, which evokes quite a bit of emotion based simply upon its title. However, it is now being reframed as Shaken Baby Impact Syndrome, Non-Accidental Injury Syndrome, and Infant Brain Injury Syndrome to exacerbate the cognitive prejudicial effect of it all.
Anatomical Areas of Concerns in SBS
There are several basic myths that underscore and characterize the situation.
The diagnosis is truly a clinical one and not one that is born of any measure of meaningful empirical testing. The notion that the triad or constellation of injuries together can only manifest based upon violent shaking that is intentional to the exclusion of everything else leads to the potential of extreme mistakes.
Doctors who seek to diagnosis SBS look at several presentation-symptoms during a physical examine to include:
subarachnoid hemorrhage. (Arachnoid hemorrhage is blood beneath the arachnoid area of the brain. The bridging vein connects the dural sinus to the cortical surface of the brain);
subdural hematoma. (A subdural hematoma is diagnosed when there is bleeding between the dural covering of the brain into the potential space which usually has no bleeding there);
patechial retinal hemorrhaging;
hypoxia;
the lack of lucid interval between alleged shaking and treatment or examination;
whether or not the caregiver posits a reasonable explanation according to the treating physician to account for all of this. In other words, does the examining physician believe the caregiver’s explaination for how the damage was sustained?
The second myth is that the symptomology cannot present itself from a short distance fall of two to three feet.
According to the prosecution, it is the rotational acceleration of the cranium that ruptures these bridging veins and causes subdural hematoma or subarachnoid bleeding and the retinal bleeding.
Now let’s speak the truth. Is it true that after a short distance fall that presents with no outward trauma that there can never be a subdural hematoma or subarachnoid bleeding and the retinal bleeding with no lucid interval?
Well, no.
The best example of the lucid interval between a short distance fall with subdural hematoma or subarachnoid bleeding and the retinal bleeding with no outward trauma was the case of Natasha Richardson. The untimely and unfortunate death of the famous actress occurred when she was on the “bunny hill” during a very short fall at very low impact resulting in no outward trauma. She remained lucid for quite a while afterwards and then died.
Now let’s use basic anthropometry and basic biomechanics to examine whether or not shaking a baby to cause enough rotational injury resulting in these injuries is indeed even possible without resulting in outward trauma?
12 month old CRABI
Well, again, the answer is no.
The most telling physical realities that confronts Shaken Baby Syndrome and reveals it as an unproven belief or at worst a dangerous myth occurs when one scientifically examines this notion that the only explanation when there is a subdural hematoma or subarachnoid bleeding and the retinal bleeding without outward obvious trauma is SBS. There can, in fact, be subdural hematomas or subarachnoid bleeding and retinal bleeding without outward obvious trauma other than from SBS.
In order to prove this is not unique to SBS or to establish that SBS is indeed impossible without outward trauma, we must first know that scientifically there are generally two different types of force: linear force and translational force. The former is a measure of acceleration that always acts in a particular direction, such as gravity. The latter is a measure of acceleration based upon a rotation. In order for there to be sufficient rotational inertia to cause the intracranial injuries in an infant, according to proponents of Shaken Baby Syndrome, there must be between 6000 to 7000 radians per second squared of rotational acceleration exerted on the cranial cavity.
A peer-reviewed study performed on Penn State Division One football players dispels this as a real possibility. They were given a CRABI device[i] and asked to shake the device as violently as possible with the stated aim for these well-trained athletes to create as much rotational force as possible. At their best, they could only generate approximately 1500 radians per second squared. However, when they were asked to slam the child’s head against a hard object, like a floor, they could generate 50,000 radians per second squared. As the researcher noted with this modified method of slamming the child’s head against the floor, an examining physician would see signs of external trauma. This is basically what we would expect to see if the impulse (J) was low. (J = FΔt; as t (deceleration) gets smaller, the J value drops significantly even when presented with the same force. Small J means the change in momentum is very fast, which is obviously going to have physical ramifications. When the experiment was modified to include a short distance fall, sufficient radians per second squared were created.
12 month old Crabi in short fall
Further the study found that in order for the football players to generate the approximate 1500 radians per second squared, the players instinctively held on to the rib area so strongly that it would very likely cause broken or bruised ribs and/pr a long bone fracture for example in the arm or leg.
Additionally from the world of biomechanics and anthropometry we learn that in an infant the head is a disproportionately large amount of mass as compared to a human with massively underdeveloped neck musculature to support its weight or orientation. This is why we are all taught to hold a baby’s head when picking it up or the head will flop causing injury to the neck. Such is the case with SBS. If it is an alleged SBS situation, the delicate area of a baby’s neck would definitively present to the examining physician with unmistakable signs of trauma.
Additionally, if there is a lack neck injury then there is also less then demonstrable evidence of Shaken Baby Syndrome as the head and the musculature around the neck of an infant is the most vulnerable area involved with babies.
The neck is the most vulnerable area in an infant and will break first before SBS occurs
Other myths that are easily demystified include:
retinal hemorrhaging is exclusive to abuse (N.B., The true mechanism that causes retinal hemorrhaging is not known)
subdural hematomas are a presentation of shaking
retinal bleeding is diagnostic of abuse
it is impossible to have a period of lucidity afterwards
chronic subdural hematomas never re-bleed, meaning if there is a preexisting injury then it always heals and it is never subject to re-presentation (N.B., subdural hematomas cannot be dated)
[i] The Child Restraint/Air Bag Interaction (CRABI) dummy has been developed at First Technology Systems, Inc. (FTSS) to evaluate small child restraint Systems in automotive crash environments, in all directions of impact, with or without air bag interaction. There are three sizes of infant dummies: a 6-month-old, 12-month-old, and 18-month old. Accelerometers are used to measure head, chest acceleration and head angular acceleration.

About the author
Justin J. McShane
Harrisburg DUI attorney Justin J. McShane is the President/CEO of The McShane Firm, LLC - Pennsylvania's top criminal law and DUI law firm. He is the highest rated DUI attorney in PA as rated by Avvo.com. Justin McShane is a double Board certified attorney. He is the first and so far the only Pennsylvania attorney to achieve American Bar Association recognized board certification in DUI defense from the National College for DUI Defense, Inc. He is also a Board Certified Criminal Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, a Pennsylvania Supreme Court Approved Agency. Justin McShane is the first and so far the only Pennsylvania attorney to achieve American Bar Association recognized board certification in DUI defense from the National College for DUI Defense, Inc.
Visit Authors Website

Shaken baby and "a momentary loss of temper"

2011-11-26T00:42:00.000-08:00

Soldier Colin Scholey

Soldier Michael Burridge

Anyone see yet another "pattern" emerging?

Soldier shook his baby to death

BY NEWS TODAY · NOVEMBER 26, 2011 · NO COMMENTS
CRIME NEWS · TAGGED: BABY, DEATH, MANSLAUGHTER, PICTURES, SOLIDER

A SOLDIER violently shook his baby son to death in a fit of rage while home on leave, a court has heard.

Five-month-old Theo Davies died of severe brain injuries and suffered extensive bleeding behind the eyes after being shaken by his ‘proud and capable father’ Private Jonathan James, a jury were told.

The 25-year-old was said to have acted in a ‘momentary loss of temper or control” while Theo’s mother Leanne Davies was down the shops fetching milk.

He denies the manslaughter of his son and his trial began at Worcester Crown Court.

The court heard little Theo had suddenly collapsed at his home in Stourport, Worcs, on August 24 2009 while in the care of his father.

He died a day later in hospital, the court was told.

Opening the prosecution, Mr Christopher Millington QC said extensive checks had been carried out by experts who had not been able to find a medical condition to account for the injuries.

He said no account of an accident which could explain the injuries had been put forward by any party and said experts had concluded it had been caused by a trauma which occurred near the time of his collapse.

Mr Millington said the prosecution believed it “probable” the youngster had

been the victim of “violent and unlawful shaking” while in the sole care of his father.

But he told the court James, now of MoD St Athan, Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, had denied ever shaking his son and had told police he could not account for how the brain damage had occurred.

Mr Millington said on August 24 James, who had been on leave from the armed forces, had got up first and heard his son stirring.

He went in and gave him a feed and medication the youngster was taking for an ear infection.

When James’ partner, the baby’s mother, had got up they realised they had no

milk. He had given her GBP10 to get some from a local store.

Mr Millington said she had returned minutes later to James calling for the emergency services and Theo to be in an unresponsive state.

Paramedics and doctors battled to save the youngster – first at Worcestershire Royal Hospital and then in Birmingham.

Although they restarted his heart he was unable breath independently.

“What the exact circumstances were may never be known. There were only two people present at the time. One was the baby, the other the defendant.

“We believe it probable that Theo was the victim of violent and vigorous shaking.

“We do not say this was inflicted intentionally. There is much evidence to suggest the defendant was a proud and capable father.

“The action was probably the result of a momentary loss of temper or control.”

But the court heard James said he had been alerted something was wrong with his son when he heard a “bumping sound and a gurgle”.

Kai Whitewind Rupert Anthony Risdon and the big porky pie!

2011-11-17T06:57:00.000-08:00

Now here's the strange thing, you see Rupert claimed in evidence in chief that he was "The Country's Only Forensic Paediatric Pathologist" on 1st December 2003, he claims to have got it in 2002, he also claimed it in his PM reports predating that date.

Thing is he wasn't as evidenced below, he then repeats the lie over and over again in other trials, trials in which the defendant has either been acquitted or have, or are being appealed, through live note and through transcripts it has been established that this is what he has said. Now what,if any effect did that have on the jury, the judge other experts when they listened to that evidence? And now I know why he added the two years, he did it because he had already told porkies in the Whitewind case.

You have to wonder how many miscarriages of justice occur because of the lies told by the experts. It's bad enough that in a trial going back a couple of years that the expert whilst still giving evidence (lunch break) was heard to be having a discussion with a member of the CPS on their mobile phone in the toilets and that the witness was not believed because it was a family member of the defendant (all transcribed) even though there was evidence of coaching, to then have misleading testimony as to qualifications etc on top of that in attempts to swing the verdict.

A fair trial isn't too much to ask for is it?

Still I will carry on reading the evidence I have, whilst keeping my MP informed. Only a public enquiry will do now.

From: registrar@apothecaries.org
To: daretocare1@aol.com
Sent: 20/11/2009 14:53:25 GMT Standard Time
Subj: Dr Rupert Risdon

Dear Mrs Mellor,

Your email to Mrs Cook has been passed to me for reply.

Dr Rupert Risdon passed the Diploma in Medical Jursiprudence (Pathology) in January 1994.

The reality of what happens when a parent snaps

2011-11-17T02:02:00.000-08:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062133/Tyler-Dasher-missing-Kidnapped-boy-1-dead-St-Louis-woods.html

What doesn't happen is the parent looks around for a soft surface to throw the baby onto or bash against so as to "leave no marks" ........

This is typical of a momentary loss of temper unlike the scenarios painted in alleged SBS cases. You see the battered child, you see the bruises that go along with the broken bones. You do not see "no marks or bruising" it's complete and utter rubbish.

I just wish that common sense would come into play - the experts always say "well quite often we see no associated bruising with the injury" Yes well that's because quite often it isn't child abuse, there's something else going on .... It isn't exactly rocket science is it, however it pays well and you get to make a name for yourself, oh and every so often the treatment of what they think is SBS kills and it kills because they're treating the wrong thing so polarised and brainwashed are these doctors, so it's convenient, not to mention expedient, to overlook the bloody obvious isn't it!

Shaken Baby Wise case Judgement Not Guilty by direction of the Judge

2011-11-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/188084-nannys-shaking-led-to-the-death-of-baby

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1038640/Nanny-accused-shaking-baby-boy-death-walks-free-judge-orders-guilty-verdict.html

Wise – ruling

In this case, after nearly a day of legal argument, I accepted the submission of Mr Wood Q.C. for the defence that I should withdraw this case from the jury and should direct them to return a verdict of NG on the indictment. I now give my reasons for that ruling, and I give it in the presence of the jury so that they may understand why I am, perhaps to their regret, taking the responsibility out of their hands. It is right to say that over some 5 weeks the jury have paid the closest attention to a great deal of evidence, much of it being expert evidence of considerable difficulty and complexity.

The prosecution case is, and has always been, that the Defendant inflicted an injury to Isaac, a baby just three months who was at the time in her sold care, by shaking him. The primary evidence on which they base this allegation is the finding, soon after admission to hospital on the morning of Sunday 3 Sept 06, of the so-called “triad of symptoms”, namely subdural haemorrhages, retinal haemorrhages and encephalopathy, which means no more than disease of the brain affecting its function. In this case the encephalopathy took the form of widespread hypoxic/ischaemic brain injury, which was detected in the scans as a loss of differentiation between grey and white matter and which resulted in severe atrophy or shrinkage of the brain Isaac was an in-patient at the RMCH.

The result was a severely brain-damaged young child, but unlike so many infants who develop this triad of symptoms, he survived and was discharged home within a few weeks. He subsequently developed epilepsy secondary to the brain injury, and despite the best efforts of specialists to control that epilepsy by means of anticonvulsant medication, he suffered Sudden Infant Death in Epilepsy 10 months later on 23 July 2007. Because his death was so long after the relevant events, and because of the severe degree of brain damage and shrinkage, only limited findings could be made by the pathologist. However, neither that cause of death, epilepsy, nor the chain of causation between the h/isch brain damage and the epilepsy and thus to his death, has been challenged in this trial.

The defendant has consistently denied shaking Isaac or inflicting any injury upon him. No external bruising was found anywhere on this body, apart from a few pinprick or petechial bruises inside the left ear. These were seen by Dr Madhvi, the consultant paediatrician who took Isaac under her care, but they very soon disappeared. They were at a point within the ear which is overlain by the outer parts of the ear, which were unmarked by any bruising, and accordingly they were not indicative of any trauma to the ear or head. No further reference to them is needed.

There was no bruising to the body and arms, such as might indicate a strong grip used when shaking Isaac. There was no bruising to the scalp, such as might indicate a blow or other form of impact. There were none of the additional pathological findings of the sort described in para 63 of the CA’s judgment in Harris, to which I am about to refer. Thus there is no evidence of any impact or blow to the head. Although there could in theory be a shaking combined with impact if the impact was onto a sufficiently soft surface to leave no mark, the case has been presented as one of shaking alone, and is principally based on the triad hypothesis. It is classically the sort of case described in para 149 in Harris, quoting Dr Anslow as saying “that to reject the carer’s version of events in favour of another requires the highest possible degree of medical evidence; after all, the doctor is effectively accusing the carer of lying”.

From an early stage of the trial, it was clear that I needed to read and re-read the important decision of CACD in Harris, Rock and Others [2006] 1 CAR 5 (p55). As well as the passages of general application in that judgment, I have had particular regard to the facts and the issues before the Court in the case of Harris, and to the fresh evidence called before the court and the disposal of that particular appeal. In fact four of the witnesses who gave evidence in the CA have given evidence in this trial, namely Mr Richards, Dr Bonshek, Dr Anslow and Dr Squier.

That immensely detailed judgment establishes that the presence of the triad is insufficient, standing alone, to justify a safe and secure finding of NAHI. More evidence is required, either clinical findings or direct or circumstancial evidence which can safely be relied on to support the inference of NAHI to which the triad strongly points but which it does not prove.

I recognise the force of the passage which has been relied on in para 70, that in a criminal trial it is for the jury to determine the issue in the light of all the evidence. I make it clear that I am not withdrawing the case simply because there is conflicting expert evidence, or because defence experts are putting forward hypotheses for other causes of Isaac’s presentation, other than NAHI; that would be to usurp the function of the injury, which is emphasised in the judgment of the President in Kai-Whitewind and in Harris itself. On the contrary, it is because of what I find to be the absence of any sufficient clinical or other evidence to support the triad, on the particular facts of this case as the trial has proceeded.
Mr Johnson has argued that the triad survives Harris in the sense that these three findings still establish that the injury must have been caused by trauma; where it modifies the previously perceived position is that further evidence is needed to support a finding that the trauma was non-accidental, an inflicted injury. I do not consider that the significance of Harris can be limited in that way. As Mr Wood has argued, the element which represents the serious damage which can be caused by shaking, the encephalopathy, can arise from non-traumatic causes.

I come to the heart of my reason for the unusual step I am taking. This is a particularly unusual case of alleged baby-shaking. When Isaac was scanned, by CT scan at Preston on 3 Sept and at Manchester the following day, it was found that in addition to a small (or very small) amount of acute subdural bleeding overlying the parietal hemispheres and the cerebellum, he also had substantial collections of fluid overlying the frontal cerebral hemispheres. This fluid was, according to all the doctors with the exception of one neuroradiologist Dr Stoodley called by the Crown, chronic subdural haemorrhage. They give their reasons for concluding that this was so (rather than finding it to be acute traumatic effusion as preferred by Dr Stoodley) and for the purpose of the present argument the Crown accept this view.

This finding of chronic subdural collections, in addition to “triad” indicating fresh injury, was taken at the time to indicate that Isaac had had an earlier head injury as well as a fresh one.

He had been admitted previously to hospital on Monday 21 August, 13 days before his acute admission on the morning of Sunday 3 September. There had been a history of earlier visits to doctors including a consultation with a paediatrician over his feeding difficulties, which had been attributed to reflux though it may be that no definitive diagnosis of this condition was ever made. A particular cause of concern to his parents was that when he vomited or refluxed or posseted his milk, it emerged through his nose. He had been thought by a health visitor to have an abnormally high palate, affecting the normal sucking action which involves squeezing the nipple or teat between the tongue and the upper palate. (It was long afterwards found that he had a chromosomal abnormality called diGeorge’s syndrome, though is common ground that this condition has no other relevance to the issues in this case. However, the belief of the parents and others at the time was that this was a baby with continuing feeding difficulties on which advice was repeatedly sought.)

On arrival at the Primary Care Centre at about 7.30 that evening he suffered what was considered to be a choking episode. He was subjected to a full septic screen to exclude infection, and this included a lumbar puncture to draw off CSF so as to exclude meningitis. Thereafter he remained in hospital for two days, being discharged on Wednesday 23rd. What is clear is that no neurological symptoms were recognised, or even suspected, on that occasion.

When the frontal subdural collections were found in the September radiography, it was concluded that Isaac had suffered an earlier subdural bleed. Furthermore, the evidence was considered to point to this earlier injury having been likewise inflicted by the Defendant. She was in charge of Isaac’s night feeds; that was an important element of what she had been employed to do.

On the night of Saturday 19 August, by which time the Defendant had been in the household for 5 days, Isaac had a particularly bad night. At various times the parents head him, they heard him scream, and they heard the Defendant go to him. In the morning he was unwell, and if was the Defendant who suggested that he should be taken to the doctor, which on Sunday morning meant the Primary Care Centre. Little was done apart from getting advice to feed him a little and often; and much the same advice was given when Isaac was taken to the GP the following day (by which time the Defendant had gone home for her delayed weekend off, having left after lunch on the Sunday). Isaac remained unwell until the parents took him back on the Monday evening as I have indicated. Thus, since he had been unwell since the Saturday night, and the Defendant had been in charge of him on that night when he became so, the Defendant seemed to be implicated.

Though there is no separate charge now on the indictment in relation to this earlier injury, the cross-examination of the Defendant shows that the Crown have not, despite the evidence I am about to describe, resiled in any way from their allegation that the Defendant inflicted this earlier injury.

I am greatly troubled by this; it has worried me from midway through the prosecution case. The problem is that on the evidence of the three specialist neuroradiologists who have given evidence, taken as a whole, the original acute bleeding, of which the subdural collections were the product, must have occurred earlier than the night of the 19/20 August, which was exactly 14 days before the night of 2/3 September; or at least, putting it less starkly, the jury cannot in my view safely find that the bleeding could have occurred as recently as that. Yet it is this on which the Crown have always primary relied, as constituting the significant further clinical evidence to support the triad so as to establish their case that something very similar occurred on the night of 2/3 September.

The problem was only faintly foreshadowed during the evidence of Dr Stoodley, the first neuroradiologist to give evidence, called as an expert by the Crown somewhat out of turn at an early stage of the trial, before the evidence of most of the treating clinicians. He, as I have said, did not think these were chronic subdural haemorrhages at all; but if he was wrong in that, he said that the bleeding must have occurred “a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks before” the scans. I thought at the time that this was an unusual concept; a minimum level of anything, ascribed by an expert, is usually a figure at the lower end of a range, rather than itself being a range of figures. There will often be a maximum figure at the other end of the range (though not here, since the chronic subdurals could be of any age above the minimum).

The picture became very much more clear-cut when Dr St Clair Forbes was called, he being the consultant neuroradiologist who first examined and interpreted the scans. He gave clear evidence, based on his experience of 30 years as a consultant in this field, that the subdural haemorrhages must have been at least 3 weeks old in order to have the appearance he saw on the scans. This evidence clearly took the Crown by surprise, and Mr Johnson pressed his witness as far as he properly could in re-examination, at which Dr StCF reluctantly and uncomfortably said that the age of the chronic subdurals could be as little as 18 days but no less. This, when coupled with the evidence of Dr Anslow that the chronic subdurals would not show for at least a month, demonstrates the difficulty the Crown face.

I do not overlook the evidence of the clinicians. Dr Smith (paediatrician) and Dr Tomlin (paediatric neurologist) gave evidence that in their view the radiological findings were consistent with the origin of the bleeding being as recent as 19 August.

Dr Tomlin had given evidence before Dr St CF and Dr Anslow and was not questioned about the timing issue: Dr Smith, who was clearly a strong adherent of the triad hypothesis, considered that the bleed could be dated from then on balance of probabilities. Mr Richards quoted a minimum of 10 days, but based this on a single case in his own experience, a case of a particularly unusual nature. In my judgment it would be unsafe to let this case go to the jury on the basis that they could safely reject the radiologists as I have described it.

I therefore conclude that the chronic subdural collections cannot safely be left to the jury as implicating the Defendant and therefore as lending safe support to the triad.

This conclusion has a further consequence. It means that the jury would have to approach this case on the basis that Isaac was, when in the Defendant’s charge on the night of 2/3 September, a child who already had an abnormal intracranial process in existence inside his skull. In my judgment, considering the evidence as a whole, this must have an impact on the issue of what degree of force would be required to cause the relevant brain damage. Was it necessarily such that the jury could safely conclude that it must have amounted to an unlawful act?

Before reaching this point of the trial I had of course given thought to the direction I would give to the jury on this issue. I intended to formulate it as follows:

The unlawful act which the proscn say she carried out was an unlawful shaking. In particular, they argue that on the evidence, you must be driven to the conclusion that she shook Isaac in a manner which was sufficiently severe to amount to an unlawful act.

Of course, any handling of a baby involves lifting and moving him about and in a sense this must involve some of the sort of movements which, if done repeatedly, could be described as shaking. And some people may be less gentle than others in the way they handle babies. But none of this would be enough to constitute an unlawful act.

You may only convict the Defendant if you are driven to the conclusion, and are sure, that she knew that what she did would be likely to cause him some physical harm, or at least that she foresaw the possibility that he would suffer some physical harm but still took that risk.

This is a topic extensively discussed in Harris. Mr Richards was an important witness and is a leading expert. In the present case he expressed himself in very moderate and guarded terms. He said no-one can know for certain what degree of force is required, that the injury could have been the result of an event not appreciated by a carer as likely to cause injury or by an event not even remembered, or not reported as a likely cause of the illness suffered by the baby. In this case in particular, there was no such a sudden collapse as occurs in many shaken baby cases.

I do not intend to review all the evidence on this topic. My conclusion is that there is not enough evidence on which the jury could safely conclude from the evidence that this catastrophic and eventually fatal injury to this child must have been, or had to have been, the result of an unlawful act on the Dft’s part.

Mr Johnson sought to distinguish Harris on the footing that in the present case there has been no acknowledgement of any shaking, whereas Ms Harris said she had given the baby a small shake to try and revive him when he collapsed. If he is right this would have the bizarre consequence that a defendant’s position is stronger, rather than weaker, if a shaking is admitted. I accept Mr Wood’s submission that the effect of the Crown’s position on this issue is to impose an improper evidential burden onto a Defendant who has consistently denied that any shaking occurred.

I do not consider that the deficiency is capable of being made good by the arguments of inconsistent accounts given by the Defendant, as recorded by different doctors whose primary task was to treat this desperately ill baby; nor by any inferences now sought to be drawn from the evidence about Isaac’s clothing, or the presence of Arnica cream on the changing table (these were issue about which the Defendant was not questioned in the very lengthy interviews and which she really cannot be expected to answer for now). I will not lengthen this ruling by going into the details.

I have not overlooked the emphasis placed by Mr Johnson on the ophthalmic evidence of the extensive retinal haemorrhages in both eyes, coupled with evidence of slight optic nerve head swelling with pathological evidence that there had been some bleeding in the nerve sheath (not itself seen by Mr Biswas on examination in life). The finding of retinal haemorrhages is not itself diagnostic of NAHI, but is only one part of the triad which itself needs to be supported by other evidence as I have already indicated.

Therefore the presence of this element of the triad makes no difference to the conclusion which I have reached, that a jury properly directed could not properly and safely convict in this case.

I will not leave this case without publicly acknowledging the tragedy of what happened to Isaac, and the double loss suffered by his parents, firstly in him sustaining catastrophic brain damage and then dying so many months later. Yesterday, when I indicated what ruling I intended to make, I commented that there are no winners in this case. The loss to the parents is incalculable. The Defendant has herself been under a cloud of suspicion for a very long time, and that cloud will not necessarily lift at once just because this trial is coming to an end.

You, the jury may feel that you have been deprived of the opportunity of performing your very important function of deciding the case. If so, I am sorry, but I have the responsibility in law to ensure that any verdict of guilty is a safe one which can be justified on the evidence. It does not mean your time has been wasted. This prosecution was brought and our system is one of trial by jury. It cannot be predicted that every trial will run it full course. I am very grateful for the close attention you have paid throughout the trial, and indeed for your wonderful consistent punctuality which is not always the case.

Direct verdict of NG on the indictment

Live Note in criminal trials

2011-11-15T00:57:00.000-08:00

The beauty of Live Note is that there is an immediate transcript of the evidence that's been given. That means the lawyers can cross reference what was said by any expert witness in one SBS trial to that which was given in evidence in another and challenge them! (R-V-Kendrick )

Off to do some more reading ........ Funny how the goal posts change to fit the evidence isn't it! Actually I'm being polite. Buy to lies ........

Oh and then there's the coaching .... Yes we know all about it, all about those secret calls between the pros and the experts .... makes the phone hacking debacle look like a teddy bears picnic. And there's me thinking that coaching was illegal! Silly girl!

Dr Nathaniel Cary.

2011-11-14T02:47:00.000-08:00

Jayden Wray death: 'Baby was shaken'

Jayden Wray died at the age of four months at Great Ormond Street Hospital in July 2009

A four-month-old boy from north London suffered fatal brain damage from being shaken, a pathologist has said.

Jayden Wray suffered a combination of complications which could not have happened accidentally or naturally, Dr Nathaniel Carey told the Old Bailey.

His skull and arms and leg were broken and he had brain damage, the court heard.

The boy's parents, Chana Al-Alas, 19, and Rohan Wray, 22, from Islington, deny murdering him in July 2009.

They also deny a count of causing or allowing his death.

Dr Carey said Jayden had bleeding in the brain and eyes, and severe brain damage caused by lack of oxygen.

"In my opinion that combination of findings, together with evidence of impact, provided something to support the cause of death," he added.

'Catastrophic collapse'

Sally O'Neill QC, who is defending Mr Wray, suggested to Dr Carey that if Jayden had been shaken badly, it would have caused an "immediate and catastrophic collapse of this child".

Dr Carey denied this, however.

Michael Turner QC, defending Miss Al-Alas, accused Dr Carey of choosing which experts he preferred when writing his report on the death.

Again the pathologist denied this.

The court has heard how Jayden was born a normal baby when his mother was aged 16 and his father 19.

A post-mortem examination found bruising under his scalp, as well as the bleeding in his brain and eyes.

His skull fracture was thought to have happened between one and two weeks before his death at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The trial continues.

Disorders of Vitamin D deficiency

2011-11-05T12:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/nutritional_disorders/vitamin_deficiency_dependency_and_toxicity/vitamin_d.html

Symptoms and Signs

Vitamin D deficiency can cause muscle aches, muscle weakness, and bone pain at any age.

Vitamin D deficiency in a pregnant woman causes deficiency in the fetus. Occasionally, deficiency severe enough to cause maternal osteomalacia results in rickets with metaphyseal lesions in neonates. In young infants, rickets causes softening of the entire skull (craniotabes). When palpated, the occiput and posterior parietal bones feel like a ping pong ball. In older infants with rickets, sitting and crawling are delayed, as is fontanelle closure; there is bossing of the skull and costochondral thickening. Costochondral thickening can look like beadlike prominences along the lateral chest wall (rachitic rosary). In children 1 to 4 yr, epiphyseal cartilage at the lower ends of the radius, ulna, tibia, and fibula enlarge; kyphoscoliosis develops, and walking is delayed. In older children and adolescents, walking is painful; in extreme cases, deformities such as bowlegs and knock-knees develop.

Tetany is caused by hypocalcemia and may accompany infantile or adult vitamin D deficiency. Tetany may cause paresthesias of the lips, tongue, and fingers; carpopedal and facial spasm; and, if very severe, seizures. Maternal deficiency can cause tetany in neonates.

Osteomalacia predisposes to fractures. In the elderly, hip fractures may result from only minimal trauma.

Rickets Vs Abuse Patrick Barnes and Louise Woodward

2011-11-05T03:53:00.000-07:00

(http://www.stanford.edu/~pbarnes/docs/publications/Rickets_Abuse.pdf

The telling tale in this paper is Pat Barnes, expert witness for the prosecution in the cause celebre SBS case Louise Woodward. Thing is, over the years Dr Barnes, having undertaken significant research and having reviewed the "science" in shaken baby has changed his mind. Those beliefs in the "myths" behind the bogus "science" started an epidemic of allegations that have underminded the health and well being of infants and have put tremendous strain upon an already over burdened child protection system.

Nobody denies the existence of child abuse, however it is not black and white.

There are cases of what I call "abuse plus", cases in which I believe that the child is predisposed to being injured and to die far more easily than a child that is healthy.

Then there are the cases in which there is no abuse, cases in which the police have become so polarised upon one person (the last person caring for the child) cases in which the baby has been previously dropped (unknown to the carer) the person that has dropped the baby at a prior date never owns up, because they see what happens when you have the triad plus, they know if they say anything, it will be them potentially serving a life sentence and if they too have children, that those children will be removed from their care. One hell of a motive to remain silent.

Then you have the cases in which the defendant is prosecuted for the wrong thing. The "gravy train buy to lie experts" say shaken, the evidence, however, points in a different direction, another form of abuse and the defendant, because the evidence against them is so "shaky" takes a walk.

Finally you have the cases that are out and out abuse, and they differ vastly to the cases in which there is alleged abuse in terms of the injuries the child has sustained.

The upshot of all of this is that proper research isn't undertaken to determine a proper cause of death, thus leading to more deaths. Parents/carers are wrongfully convicted and surviving children's lives are wrecked and finally by pursuing the myth with the zeal that some police officers do, combined with the support of the VERY well paid experts,who make a living out of this, you end up with such controversy as to prevent the prosecution of the real abusers and that is not acceptable at any level.

So I hope that all those doctors out there who have lied, schemed and become so entrenched in their views are proud of what they have achieved. They are the architects of a myth based belief system, whipping up moral panic in which all children are failed and become victims. The parents who drop their baby, who don't go to A and E in case they are accused, the carer that dropped the baby who then dies, who doesn't own up, the babies with genuine life threatening conditions who die and are classified as murders and last but not least, the clever abuser who knows what to say now in order to extricate themselves from being convicted of murder.

So when the child killers who got away because of all the above kill again and I know which cases they are, I will make sure that those that were involved, the medics and their cronies in the CPS and the Police are charged in relation to the deaths that will happen.

Finally, when doctors fuck up and kill children, they can be arrested and charged with manslaughter, one hell of a motive to lie isn't it!!! FENTANYL .......

Alleged shaken baby case man acquitted USA

2011-11-02T11:26:00.001-07:00

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20111102/NEWS/111109999

Broken bones baby death and Great Ormond Street Cameron Chipperfield

2011-11-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

So when the baby is in the sole care of GOSH and they discover broken bones and then subsequently dies, it's an "unknown metabolic condition" - if the baby is admitted with the same injuries, the parent/carer did it ....

Welcome to brand Great Ormond Street!

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-16615112-guard-on-hospital-baby.do

And just in case the readers don't believe ..... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055232/Baby-Peter-whistleblower-Kim-Holt-driven-protect-Great-Ormond-Street-brand.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Four month old baby with rickets was "shaken to death"

2011-11-02T02:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056290/Jayden-Wray-4-month-old-baby-rickets-shaken-death.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Shaken Baby and unsafe convictions

Vitamin D Deficiency crisis in Southern Australia

Current vitamin D deficiency testing not accurate

BBC Radio 4 Listen again Shaken Baby SIDS and Vit D Deficiency

BBC Radio 4 Listen again Shaken Baby SIDS and Vit D Deficiency

Vitamin D Rickets, Shaken Baby and BBC Radio 4 Today Programme

Shaken Baby syndrome breaking down the myths the Annie Li case

Jayden Wray

Murder trial highlights return of Dickensian killer - health - 05 January 2012 - New Scientist

Vitamin D deficiency Jayden Wray and the tip of a very nasty iceberg

The disturbing reason why a growing number of parents are being falsely accused of shaking their babies to death

Unsettling Science Shaken Baby

Unsettling Science: Experts Are Still Debating Whether Shaken Baby Syndrome Exists

"some pathologists omit the fact they broke bones in order to trick the defence experts"

Dr Nathaniel Cary PM report shaken baby case in 2010

Parents cleared of murder as 'shaken baby' trial collapses | News

Jayden Wray Rule 43 Coroners Act

Chana Al Alas and Rohan Wray cleared

Pair cleared over baby Jayden Wray death

Jayden Wray

Nosheen Arshad full Appeal 6th December 2011

COURT 5

The out of control media and child abuse

Rohan Wray and Chana Al-Alas The Perfect Parents

Baby Jayden Wray – Jury told of ‘proud, happy parents’

Jayden Wray - Always in my thoughts

To those commenting

The truth behind what's going on in the UK Shaken Baby

When shaken baby isn't shaken baby - Gorillas V Humans!

Chicago's 'mysterious' baby gorilla death

Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo staff gleefully welcomed an endangered gorilla's offspring, only to find the infant dead — possibly at its mother's hand — nine days later

Linda Carty

Is Shaken Baby Syndrome for real - exploding the myths of the triad

http://www.thetruthaboutforensicscience.com/what-really-is-shaken-baby-syndrome-is-it-for-real/

What really is Shaken Baby Syndrome? Is it for real?

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