Angela Cannings was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the UK in 2002 for the murder of her seven-week-old son, Jason, who died in 1991, and of her 18-week-old son Matthew, who died in 1999. Her first child, Gemma, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in 1989 at the age of 13 weeks, although she was never charged in connection with Gemma's death.
Her conviction was based on claims that she had smothered the children, but was overturned as unsafe by the Court of Appeal on 10 December 2003.[1] Cannings was convicted after the involvement in her case of Professor Sir Roy Meadow, a paediatrician who was later struck off, then reinstated, by the General Medical Council.[2]
The Cannings case was re-examined after a BBC "Real Story" investigation showed that her paternal great-grandmother had suffered one sudden infant death and her paternal grandmother two. Professor Michael Patton, a clinical geneticist at St George's Hospital Medical School, told the BBC that a genetic inheritance was the most likely explanation for the crib deaths in the family.[4]
Involvement of Roy Meadow
Expert witness Professor Sir Roy Meadow was later struck off the General Medical Council register partly as a result of his evidence at the Cannings trial. Meadow based his calculations on the likelihood of a second crib death being the same as the likelihood of a first, whereas in households where one crib death has taken place, the probability of another is greatly increased. He also asserted crib death implausible (which was contrary to the opinion of other specialists). Cannings later said Meadow should be "severely punished" for his testimony in her case and others. Meadow was later reinstated to the GMC on appeal, a judge ruling that his errors did not amount to serious professional misconduct.[5]
Other cases
The quashing of Cannings' conviction and other high-profile cases resulted in a review of 297 other cases where conviction relied on expert witness opinion. On 14 February 2006, Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, announced that three of these cases needed to be reconsidered by the courts.
Maxine Robinson – UK serial killer mother exposed, with the assistance of Meadow, around the same time as Cannings and others in similar cases were freed, leading the judge to comment that the case was "a timely reminder that not all mothers in prison for killing their children are the victims of miscarriages of justice[6]
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usually occurs during sleep. Typically death occurs between the hours of midnight and 9:00 a.m. There is usually no noise or evidence of struggle. SIDS remains the leading cause of infant mortality in Western countries, constituting half of all post-neonatal deaths.
Brachycephaly is the shape of a skull shorter than average in its species. It is perceived as a cosmetically desirable trait in some domesticated dog and cat breeds, notably the pug and Persian, and can be normal or abnormal in other animal species.
Sally Clark was an English solicitor who, in November 1999, became the victim of a miscarriage of justice when she was found guilty of the murder of her two infant sons. Clark's first son died in December 1996 within a few weeks of his birth, and her second son died in similar circumstances in January 1998. A month later, Clark was arrested and tried for both deaths. The defense argued that the children had died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The prosecution case relied on flawed statistical evidence presented by paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow, who testified that the chance of two children from an affluent family suffering SIDS was 1 in 73 million. He had arrived at this figure by squaring his estimate of a chance of 1 in 8500 of an individual SIDS death in similar circumstances. The Royal Statistical Society later issued a statement arguing that there was no statistical basis for Meadow's claim, and expressed concern at the "misuse of statistics in the courts".
Shaken baby syndrome (SBS), also known as abusive head trauma (AHT), is a medical condition in children younger than five years old, generally caused by blunt trauma, vigorous shaking, or a combination of both. SBS is the leading cause of fatal head injuries in children under two, with a risk of death of about 25%. The most common symptoms include retinal bleeds, multiple fractures of the long bones, and subdural hematomas.
Sir Samuel Roy Meadow is a British retired paediatrician infamous for facilitating several wrongful convictions of mothers for murdering their babies. He was awarded the Donald Paterson prize of the British Paediatric Association in 1968 for a study of the effects on parents of having a child in hospital. In 1977, he published an academic paper describing a phenomenon dubbed Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSbP). In 1980 he was awarded a professorial chair in paediatrics at St James's University Hospital, Leeds, and in 1998, he was knighted for services to child health.
Meadow's Law is a discredited legal concept in the field of child protection, intended to be used to judge cases of multiple cot or crib deaths – Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) – within a single family.
Hypoventilation occurs when ventilation is inadequate to perform needed respiratory gas exchange. By definition it causes an increased concentration of carbon dioxide (hypercapnia) and respiratory acidosis. Hypoventilation is not synonymous with respiratory arrest, in which breathing ceases entirely and death occurs within minutes due to hypoxia and leads rapidly into complete anoxia, although both are medical emergencies. Hypoventilation can be considered a precursor to hypoxia and its lethality is attributed to hypoxia with carbon dioxide toxicity.
Louise Woodward, born in 1978 (age 44–45), is a British former au pair, who at the age of 18 was charged with murder, but was subsequently convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of eight-month-old baby Matthew Eappen, in Newton, Massachusetts, United States.
David Southall is a retired British paediatrician who specialised in international maternal and child hospital healthcare and in child protection. He worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993-1995, for which he received an OBE in 1999. In 1995 he set up the charity Maternal and Childhealth Advocacy International (MCAI), of which he remains a trustee as of 2023. His child protection work and research into Munchausen syndrome by proxy attracted controversy and led to conflict with the General Medical Council.
An infant bed is a small bed especially for infants and very young children. Infant beds are a historically recent development intended to contain a child capable of standing. The cage-like design of infant beds restricts the child to the bed. Between one and two years of age, children are able to climb out and are moved to a toddler bed to prevent an injurious fall while escaping the bed.
Factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), also known as fabricated or induced illness by carers (FII), and first named as Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP), is a mental health disorder in which a caregiver creates the appearance of health problems in another person, typically their child. This may include injuring the child or altering test samples. The caregiver then presents the person as being sick or injured. Permanent injury or death of the victim may occur as a result of their caregiver having the disorder. The behaviour occurs without a specific benefit to the caregiver.
Kathleen Megan Folbigg is an Australian woman who was wrongfully convicted in 2003 of murdering her four infant children. She was pardoned in 2023 after 20 years in jail following a long campaign for justice by her supporters, and had her convictions overturned on appeal a few months later.
Trupti Patel is a qualified pharmacist from Maidenhead in Berkshire, England, who was acquitted in 2003 of murdering three of her children, Amar, Jamie, and Mia.
Donna Anthony is a British woman from Somerset who was jailed in 1998 after being convicted of the murder of her two babies. She was cleared and freed after having spent more than six years in prison.
Cherished is a single British true crime drama, written by acclaimed screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes, that first broadcast on BBC One on 22 February 2005. Starring Sarah Lancashire as protagonist Angela Cannings, the drama is based on Cannings' wrongful conviction for the deaths of two of her infant children, Jason and Matthew. Directed by Robin Sheppard, the drama also stars Timothy Spall as Angela's husband Terry, Emma Cunniffe as Angela's sister Claire; and Ian McNeice as her defence barrister; Bill Bache. The drama was a joint production between the BBC's drama and current affairs wings. 5.18 million viewers tuned in for the initial broadcast. Similarly to other true-life BBC productions of the time; Cherished has never been released on DVD.
Marilyn Stowe is an English family lawyer. She founded her firm in a converted cobbler’s shop in Halton, Leeds, in 1982. An attack by three masked men outside her office on 3 December 2003 led to the closure of her offices in Leeds, followed by a reopening in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. The success of this office inspired Stowe to open branches across the country, and she eventually grew the firm into the UK’s largest family law specialist. In February 2017 she sold her firm and blog for a ‘substantial’ eight figure sum to private equity investors Living Bridge. Her first clients were legally aided. Later they included members of the aristocracy, and some of the wealthiest and best known figures in the UK and abroad.
Sir Andrew David Collins, styled The Hon. Mr Justice Collins, is a retired English barrister and judge. He served as a Justice of the High Court's Queen's Bench Division from 1994 until his 75th birthday in July 2017.
A bedside sleeper, also referred to as a sidecar sleeper or bedside bassinet, is a bassinet or baby cot that attaches to the parents' bed, allowing newborns to sleep next to their parents safely. This is a form of safe co-sleeping, and has little risks associated with sudden infant death syndrome, unlike bedsharing. Bedside sleepers are a component of rooming-in, a practice followed in hospitals to keep the baby by the mother's bed, giving her time to establish a stronger bond with her baby.
Infant and toddler safety are those actions and modifications put into place to keep babies and toddlers safe from accidental injury and death. Many accidents, injuries and deaths are preventable.
Maxine Robinson is an English woman who murdered all three of her children between 1989 and 1993. Convicted of murdering two of the children in 1995, Robinson unsuccessfully appealed against her convictions, claiming their deaths had been natural. However, in 2004, she admitted killing them and further revealed that she had, in 1989, murdered her first-born child, whose death until then had been considered a cot death. Her trial judge observed that Robinson's case was a "timely" reminder that "not all mothers in prison for killing their children are the victims of miscarriages of justice."
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