Some News Stories Make You Angry...Others Make You Cry
Sally Clark has died. The name might not mean much to you if you live outside the U.K or perhaps if the case back in 1999 passed you by.
Sally Clark was released in 2003 having been wrongfully imprisoned for more than three years, falsely accused of the murder of her two sons. According to the statement released by her family last night "she never fully recovered from the effects of this appalling miscarriage of justice."
Another victim of a miscarriage of justice, Angela Cannings, who was wrongly convicted of killing two of her babies then cleared in 2003, said she was "shocked" and "angry" by the news of Mrs Clark's death. Mrs Cannings spent 18 months in prison, said: "I'm really speechless, I'm so angry. This lady suffered so much now she's died, I'm just shocked and stunned."
Mrs Clark served more than three years in jail after she was found guilty of smothering eight-week-old Harry and 11-week-old Christopher following her trial at Chester Crown Court in 1999. On appeal, Mrs Clark was found to have been wrongly convicted of the twin murders after new medical evidence emerged which had not been presented at her trial. Professor Sir Roy Meadow gave evidence during her trial claiming the probability of two natural unexplained cot deaths in the family was 73 million-to-one. The figure was disputed by the Royal Statistical Society and other medical experts who said the odds of a second cot death in a family were around 200-to-one. Sir Roy was found guilty of serious professional misconduct and struck off the medical register. However, both of these decisions were overturned on appeal at the High Court.
Our thoughts must be with Mrs Clark's family at this time and I hope that somewhere Professor Meadow is trying to make peace with his own conscience.
7 comments:
You might benefit from informing yourself more about the Trial and Appeals of Sally Clark.
Dr Alan Willimas the Home Office pathologist lied about the Staphylococcus infections in Harry Clark which he knew of in 1998, withheld from the prosecution lawyers and when challenged by the jury, he simply lied. These reports did not surface until 2002.
This alone caused the collapse of the 2nd Appeal acquittal and release.
A good starting point might be
http://postmanpatel.blogspot.com/2007/03/sally-clark-troubled-life.html
or in case that doesn't work
http://tinyurl.com/34rjr8
.... oops
This alone caused the collapse of the 2nd Appeal acquittal and release.
should read
This alone caused the collapse of the prosecution case at the 2nd Appeal - acquittal and release.
Thank you Shutter(?) - I have read the links you kindly provided. My sympathy still resides with those of Mrs Clark's family.
What the links do prove is that in many cases that are brought to court there are issues played out which have a direct impact on the outcome of the trial but which never come to the jury or the public's attention.
My reaction to this news is a mixture of sadness and anger. How come that Dr Alan Williams didn't get done for for perverting the course of jusctice?
I'm sorry but I haven't managed to access the links that Shutter provided.
I feel mixed about all this.
I feel sorry for the family and dreadfully sorry for the remaining child that is now motherless.
Ray Meadows might be culpable for a lot of things but surely not for her mental state of mind before and after she had her children.
By all accounts this is a tragic case; and one where no-one will ever know exactly what happened.
Sarnia's a braver person than I.
I'd been thinking rather the same.
Sally Clark had mental health problems when she had her children, and according to one Sunday paper had been drinking heavily again.
It's a very sad case, but I don't think you can heap all the blame on the Doctors.
I can't remember all the details of this case but generally I thought mothers were usually charged with infanticide rather than murder owing to the fact that to kill your own child you are generally insane.
The children's deaths were probably cot death but as no one actually knows what happened it seems very strange to have charged her with murder.
All very sad.
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