This is the transcript of a BBC Radio5 documentary, “73 million to one,” presented
by John Sweeney, July 15, 2000
These cot-death convictions
are just plain wrong
Today we raise the possibility of an appalling number of miscarriages of justice.
Sally Clark’s recorded voice: “I now face the minute-by-minute torture of life imprisonment,
knowing I did not harm my little boys.” Paul Sykes: “That sentence is not rigorous.
It’s just wrong. You have lost faith in the British judicial system?” - “Absolutely.
My faith in the system is just destroyed.”
The discovery of a cot death gene this spring means that innocent mothers who have
suffered the unbearable pain of double cot deaths may have been jailed for murders
that never actually happened. Recorded voice again: “I’m Sally Clark. I’m 36 years
of age. I’m a solicitor. I have been married to Stephen Clark, who is also a solicitor,
for nearly 11 years We had three children, all of them boys. Christopher, my first-born,
and Harry, my second little boy, are no longer alive. My third son is nearly two-and-a-half
years old. I am able to see him, just the two of us, for one wonderful day every
month.”
That was the haunting voice of Sally Clark, now in prison serving a double life sentence
for the cruellest crime imaginable, murdering her own baby boys, Christopher, aged
three months, and Harry, aged two months. She could spend the rest of her life in
prison for the double murder she says she did not commit. When she was found guilty
in November 99, the papers had a field day. They ran claims that she was a binge
drinker, none of which had come before the court. The Sunday Mirror: “Fall from grace
for the woman with everything;” the Daily Mail, “Driven by drink and despair, the
solicitor who killed her babies;” and the local evening paper, the Manchester Evening
News: “Pregnant days after murdering baby son.”
It was a classic media witch-burning. Steve Clark, Sally’s husband, who stood by her: “Reading the newspapers, how they reported her after the conviction you would think Sally Clark was a witch. Well, she isn’t, 90% of what was said in the newspapers was totally and utterly untrue.” Sally’s first child, Christopher, was born in September 96 and died three months later. At the time he was certified to have died naturally from a lung infection. Her second child Harry was born in November 97 and died in January 98; the next month, Sally was arrested for murder. She was accused of smothering baby Christopher and shaking baby Harry to death.
At her trial Professor Sir Roy Meadow told the jury that there was only a one in
73 million chance of Sally having two cot deaths, an event, he said, that would happen
once every hundred years. It was a devastating sound-bite and the jury convicted
her ten to two. Professor Meadow is the inventor of Munchausen’s by Proxy, the controversial
theory that some mothers harm or even murder their babies to seek attention. We asked
him to appear on this programme but he declined. He has, however, given a rare interview
to an American film maker: “You just have to recognise there are some mothers and
fathers who have enormous difficulties, often through no fault of their own, who
do terrible things to their children but as a paediatrician you don’t hate them,
you hate what has happened to the child. Sometimes it makes me physically sick when
I get involved with a case. I’m just not eating. I vomit. I’m so upset.”
Sir Roy has been knighted for his services to the study of child abuse. He was the first president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and is the author of The ABC of Child Abuse, the leading textbook in the area. His mind-set is encapsulated by the following saying, quoted in this book: “One sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious, and three is murder until proved otherwise. A crude aphorism but a sensible working rule for anyone encountering these tragedies.”
You could call “unless proven otherwise two is suspicious and three is murder” Meadow’s
Law.
No-one is suggesting that mothers never kill their babies, but Professor Meadow’s
crude aphorism is now used as a rule of thumb by doctors, police and social workers.
It risks tarring all mothers who have suffered multiple cot deaths as murderers.
It presumes guilt, not innocence. And the presumption of guilt kicks in at the very
moment a second cot death occurs when an innocent mother would be going through unendurable
pain. Mothers like Sue Sale: she lost two babies to cot death in the 1980’s before
Meadow’s Law had become established wisdom.. She picked up her baby knowing he was
dead, knowing he was the second to die. “I didn’t want to have to let him go because
I thought, if I ring people they’re going to try and take him away, and I couldn’t
believe that this could have happened again to me. It was the most awful, dreadful,
shock.”
The deaths were investigated but Sue Sale was never charged. After all, she had done nothing wrong. Since then the climate has changed dramatically. Professionals are advised, be suspicious and think dirty. Is it possible that today the odds could be stacked against an innocent mother who has suffered two cot deaths but has not harmed her children in any way? In the Sally Clark case the forensic evidence was hotly contested and this was a murder trial where, let us remember, the standard of proof ought to be beyond reasonable doubt. Enter Meadow’s sound-bite of one chance in 73 million for two babies dying naturally. Prosecuting barrister Robin Spencer asked Sir Roy, “So is this right? Not only would the chance be one in 73 million but in addition in these two deaths there are features which would be regarded as suspicious in any event?” And Sir Roy answered: “I believe so.”
It was a smoking gun statistic. In one sound bite you had a compelling case against
Sally Clark. To get to the figure family circumstances are factored in. A single-parent
smoker is more likely to suffer a cot death than a middle class family like Clark’s.
So you arrive at a figure of one cot death in 8,500 in a family like Sally’s. The
Clarks suffered two deaths. Professor Meadow multiplied 8,500 by 8,500 and arrived
at the chance of one in 73 million.
“It is to Probability Theory the equivalent of what to arithmetic would be saying
that two plus two equals five” - Dr Stephen Watkins, Director of Public Health, Stockport.
He was so troubled by Professor Sir Roy Meadow’s evidence that he wrote a damning
critique in the BMJ. “I felt I had to write that. The way Sir Roy Meadow had used
statistics was completely wrong. He had calculated the probability of one specified
individual having two cot deaths. The actual figure he should have calculated was
the probability of some person having two cot deaths.” It may not happen to you,
yes, but it will happen to someone. “I’ll give you an example. The probability of
me winning the lottery this Saturday is very low. But the probability of somebody
winning the lottery this Saturday is quite high. And what Sir Roy is doing is exactly
the equivalent of saying that whoever wins the lottery must have committed fraud
because of the low probability of that individual winning the lottery.”
Dr Watkins has a vivid memory of where he was when the news broke of Sir Roy’s sound-bite
“I was actually having a dinner with three other public health doctors at the time
that we heard this figure reported on the television and the reaction of each of
the four of us was that this is a misuse of statistics. This is wrong. This is not
correct evidence.” Dr Watkins’ is not a lone voice. Peter Donnelly is professor of
Statistical Science at Oxford University. He points out that a key issue was whether
Sir Roy was right to multiply the risk factors of the two deaths to get to the one
in 73 million number. “It is only valid statistically to multiply the numbers if
it has been established that whether or not one child dies in a household of cot
death is completely independent of whether or not another child dies in the household.
In order to present that kind of number in court one should have evidence that establishes
that independence.” By independence Professor Donnelly means that for the one in
73 million number to be right the two deaths have to be proved to be wholly unconnected.
For example, that there were no environmental factors in common. “It’s just wrong
scientifically to multiply those two numbers together unless the independence has
been established. If it hasn’t, then it’s at best speculation and depending on the
circumstances of the case, possibly extremely misleading. It’s poor science.” How
rigorous is it? “Unless the independence has been established, it’s wrong. In that
sense it’s not rigorous, it’s just wrong.”
So the Crown’s case contained a hidden contradiction. Sir Roy would have had to assume that the two deaths were not connected but the two deaths were connected . . . so said Professor Meadow to the court. Sir Roy was having his cake and eating it. The defence did not use an expert statistician to challenge Sir Roy’s figure, intent as it was on attacking the forensic evidence. This decision may have cost Sally Clark dear. But how could a distinguished scientist like Sir Roy make such a mistake? Dr Stephen Watkins: “I think he has used techniques which lay beyond his expertise.” Dr Watkins’ article in the British Medical Journal which attacked Sir Roy’s use of statistics was called “Conviction by mathematical error?” Professor Sir Roy Meadow has not replied to the attack. No statistician we have contacted has said that the one in 73 million figure in the way that Sir Roy used it is defensible. The damage to Sally Clark was that it presented to the jury, confronted as it was with a mass of complicated conflicting forensic evidence, a simple but false certainty.
Last October the Court of Appeal turned down Sally Clark’s first attempt to clear
her name. The court ruled that the 73 million figure used at the criminal trial was
a sideshow. But Five Life Report has been told by a source that one juror has said,
“Whatever you say about Sally Clark, you can’t get around the one in 73 million figure.”
In May this year the Solicitors’ Tribunal met to decide whether Sally Clark, a convicted
double murderer, should be struck off. Normally this would be a rubber stamp This
is part of her plea, presented at the tribunal on video tape: “I was advised before
my trial that if I put in a plea of infanticide I would probably serve no term of
imprisonment. I am where I am today because I could not tell any lies. I did not
lie then and I cannot lie now even if it would procure my immediate release.” The
solicitors’ tribunal decided only to suspend her. This unique decision reflects growing
anxiety about the soundness of her conviction. Others are convinced a great wrong
has been done. Frank Lockyer is Sally’s father; he is a retired divisional commander
of Wiltshire police. “There is a photograph of her standing there with her mother.
There’s a photograph of them both with her first child, Christopher. People who look
at photographs and videos of Sally at the time with her children say we don’t want
to see any more; the body language of relationships . . . I mean to say, if that
woman . . . I can’t tell you . . . could murder that child. It’s ridiculous. I’m
sorry, but it’s just ridiculous. You know, she’d have to be a monster. She’s no monster.“
Brian Lowry is emeritus professor of medical genetics and paediatrics at the University
of Calgary, Canada. What does he think of Meadow’s Law? “I think that’s frankly wrong,
and most misleading and it’s time someone challenged that viewpoint. In transcripts
he’s quoted as saying that each death has the characteristics of unnatural causes,
which is enhanced by the fact that two deaths have occurred about the same age in
one home. Well, that could just as easily be genetic and to quote that in the prosecution,
I think, is shocking.” Dr Ian Rushton is a retired paediatric pathologist with 40
years’ experience carrying out autopsies on infants. He was called for the defence
in the Sally Clark case. “I feel very uneasy about the problems that mothers who
lose two or three babies have at the moment, because they are basically in a situation
where they have to prove their innocence by obtaining medical information to counteract
a theory. The problem is that there is as present knowledge stands no such evidence.”
Enter the University of Manchester: this year they announced “Cot death gene identified.”
Scientists looked at the DNA of 23 babies who died from cot deaths or sudden infant
death syndrome - SIDS for short. They compared it to the genetic make-up of normal
babies. In some cot death babies they found a common gene. “The microbiology we did
finding that babies with cot deaths more likely to have bacteria that produced poisonous
substances such as toxins is what actually made us think of particular genes.” Dr
David Drucker, Reader in microbiology at Manchester University, and one of the team
that tracked down the cot death gene. Dr Drucker has been working on cot deaths for
15 years. The others include Prof. Ian Hutchinson and a husband-and-wife team of
scientists who have suffered their own cot-death tragedy. More discoveries will follow.
“In terms of applying it to cot death it’s almost as though we had opened a door
to a new room and we have really just taken one step inside it at the moment and
we’re waiting to explore what is that room.”
What does Dr Drucker think of Meadow’s Law, that unless proven otherwise, two is suspicious and three is murder? “I would say it is really scientifically illiterate, because as a microbiologist in particular I can think of all sorts of diseases connected with bacteria where, if one member of the family is ill, you can’t just assume that for any other member the odds are the same as they were for the first person who was ill. We know from experience that every time there is a flu epidemic, if one person is ill, it is actually more likely that another member of the family would become ill.” So what is the significance of the discovery of a cot death gene on Prof Meadow’s smoking-gun statistic? Professor Lowry: “I think it is absolute rubbish to say the one in 73 million chance because in fact Sally Clark’s second chance might have been as high as one-in-four so the way they misused the statistic is atrocious.” A chance of one-in-four as a statistic is at the extreme end of the scale where both parents carry the cot-death gene, but it is possible. More likely are odds hugely less remote than one in 73 million. The cot death gene provides fresh evidence that speaks not to murder but to innocence. It turns the Sally Clark case inside out; what was black becomes white.
The implications for justice of Manchester University’s breakthrough don’t just stop
with Sally Clark. That’s because Prof Sir Roy Meadow testified for the prosecution
in many criminal trials and family courts. I asked paediatric pathologist Dr Ian
Rushton what happens if Meadow’s Law is wrong. “Well if the theory is wrong, then
obviously there would have to be a total rethink and presumably all the past cases
would have to be reviewed.”
Until now Meadow’s Law is a criminal theory, to which
there has been no easy way out. “ From the jury’s point of view there are three things
that happen. First of all, there is a mother in the dock; what is she doing there
if she didn’t do anything wrong? Secondly, there are two dead babies; the mother
cannot deny that. And thirdly there is a learned professor who says either these
deaths were not natural or they are murder. Now that effectively shifts the burden
of proof straight on to the mother. What I believe the jury’s common-sense reaction
is, if she can prove that she did nothing to her babies we’ll let her off; if she
can’t she must be guilty.”
How can a mother defend her innocence? “It is medically impossible, absolutely impossible, to prove that a baby has not been smothered. Think about that for a moment. You can never prove that a baby has not been smothered.” Sally Clark is not the only alleged killer-mum who was jailed with the help of evidence of Prof Sir Roy Meadow. Donna Anthony is also serving a double life sentence for murdering her two babies. She is in Durham Prison. She was convicted on forensic and character-witness evidence which again was contested. Donna Anthony, who had an appalling childhood, is no Sally Clark. She is not a solicitor and cut a desperately poor figure in the witness box. Roy Meadow told the jury that there was a one-in-a-million chance of the two babies dying naturally. He testified: “Natural cot death has an incidence now of about one-in-a-thousand. So the chance of natural cot death happening twice in a family is one-in-a-thousand times one-in-a-thousand which is one-in-a-million. It is extraordinarily unlikely, and of course neither of these two deaths fitted the criteria of what most experts would call cot death or sudden infant death syndrome.”
The method Sir Roy used to arrive at one-in-a-million is the same as that used in the one-in-73 million number - the difference being that Donna Anthony was a working-class smoker. And that method is just plain wrong. George Hawkes was Donna Anthony’s solicitor “I still worry about it now, and it’s nearly three years on. that there was not any direct evidence that she had done anything to her children; there was not a single mark on them and pathologists said they couldn’t find any cause of death, and five years before that, that would have been the end of the matter. It’s really only the advent of Prof Meadow coming in and being involved in a number of these cases that Donna Anthony seems to me to have been caught up in a snowball effect where - I don’t want to make light of it - it is almost becoming fashionable to prosecute in these particular situations. It’s a sort of gathering force.“ Five Live Report knows of a third case, but we can’t give any of the details. Prof Sir Roy Meadow’s evidence as well as other testimony led to the family losing all four children to care. Because of a family court gag on the media we cannot interview the parents. We know of many other cases as well.
Susie Sale has followed the Sally Clark case and others very closely, and now champions
their cause. She believes that what happened to them happened to her. “I think about
her quite often, actually, because I know that there but for the grace of God it
could have been me in that situation, and I know how awful I felt losing those boys
and what a terrible, terrible thing . . . it’s such a blight on your life; your life
is never the same again.” What about this principle which is supposed to be in British
justice of reasonable doubt? “I wish we could think they took that into account.
There wasn’t any concrete evidence, I think, that says that she actually killed those
children.” Because if the one in 73 million statistic is true - “then I killed my
children and I know I haven’t. My husband knows I haven’t killed my children, my
family, my relatives, the whole town where I live, know it. I know now there was
nothing I could have done to prevent what happened. I didn’t miss an illness or whatever.
So I’m at peace with myself but I think that if I was in another town, another part
of the country, I could have been in that situation.”
For the friends of Sally Clark, the discovery of a cot death gene provides hope. John Batt [the solicitor who represented her before the solicitors’ tribunal]: “Genetics was never a factor at Sally’s trial. The discovery of a new gene in Manchester is entirely new, it is fresh evidence, and it is clearly at a very early stage in its development. I have no doubt that genetics will play a very large part in Sally’s application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.” Five Live Report has put a series of questions to Sir Roy Meadow about his theory, his one-in-73 million sound-bite and Meadow’s Law; he declined to take part in this programme. Had the jury known in the case of Sally Clark that instead of Sir Roy’s evidence that there was a one-in-73 million chance of her babies dying naturally it could conceivably have been one-in-four, would they have convicted her? “If it can happen to us, what chance has an ordinary couple in a council estate got? or a single mother in Brixton got?” If Meadow’s Law is fatally flawed then there has not been one miscarriage of justice but a great number, ruining the lives of dozens of people who have been in prison or had their babies taken from them for nothing more than having the wrong genes. Perhaps Home Secretary David Blunkett might consider this: That the law should approach grieving mothers with a new, crude aphorism: that, in the absence of compelling evidence of murder, one cot death is a tragedy, and two is a tragedy, and three is a tragedy.
John Sweeney.
www.slimeylimeyjustice.org