Sally Clarke has died....

[ZZMum]

Poor poor woman... how awful for her family after all they went thru...

I don't apologise. I didn't know her. If I had known her personally, I may be in a position to say that she was this, that or the other. I may not have liked her if I'd known her. I may not have thought she was a nice person. But THIS IS NOT THE PLACE TO SAY IT. This is a place to mourn her, to be angry at what she went through, to think of her poor husband and child. Not a place to slag her off.

Blimey - the poor woman never stood a chance. The simmering hateful sense of judgement and mysogyny reeks in that BBC report. The letter from Harry sounds exactly the kind of ironic humour an exhausted mother of a newborn employs....and very affectionately, too. My letter about DS's sleeping / feeding would have been far more upfront. First step to Holloway...be an exhausted sleepless mother.

totally agree with you re the misogyny - all these cases simply reeked of it

One thing to note - if you read the old article re the drink, and look at the "top articles" next to it, there is on about how the UK are not in a rush to go to war with Iraq.
Proves what shit is written in the papers.

Please don't drag up old articles - they are one of the reasons Sally Clarke found it so hard to move on after her release I would imagine.

She was cleared. Leave her in peace.

This is awful. Poor lady and her poor family.

What a tragedy.

This is just so tragic and so sad. I actually feel very angry. I hope Meadows is feeling shame today. RIP Sally.

Homemama "...never understood the 1 in 70million chance of it happening twice thing. Surely it's the probability senario where you put all the balls back in the bag? So there's 6 balls of differing colours and one is black. Person A picks the black one, it goes back in. So surely person A picking it out again on their second turn is no higher probability than person B picking it the first time i.e 1in6. By that I mean after the sad death of her first child, why is it any less likely to happen to her again than it is to happen to her neighbour?"

In the six balls in a bag analogy you have a one in 36 chance of picking the black one twice. But if you have already picked it once your chance is then 1 in six as you point out. That assumes that picking it the first time does not make you any more likely to pick it a second time.

Cot death could be due to some unknown genetic susceptibility or environmental cause, so actually the chance of it happening a second time is much increased.

That is based on my memories of A level stats. It is outrageous that the "expert" witness RM did not even seem to have that level of understanding.

This news is terribly sad and I am really that those responsible have not been brought to account for their actions.

How sad just saying on news she been in ill health for some time! Saying a post mortem to be done on Mon! My heart goes out to her DH and DS X

One of the most harrowing aspects of this case is behind the headlines - the hidden suffering every day of that poor woman for years for many reasons. I just feel heartbroken for her, her husband, for her two little babies that died and to her surviving child.

It's not a perfect life and some people are far from perfect, and she seems to have been an ordinary person under extraordinary stress. How many of us could be portrayed in a negative light if we were accused of something awful? How many ordinary day-to-day actions take on a sinister hue when under suspicion?

It is certainly making me question very closely the sort of society we live in.

This is heartbreaking.

a very sad story

Corkgirl where did you hear that and if it's true Alcoholism is a illness too you know.

It makes me angry more than sad that this can happen.

I am that Corkgirl feels the need to bring this up in this particular thread.

Aside from the fact that even if it were true - and who am i to know? - it doesn't mean she deserved her children dying and then to be blamed for it!

I hope that her DH and DS can be left to rebuild their lives as best without intrusion from the press.

Such a sad story, and I agree with everyone about her post-release pictures...she just looked completely empty behind her eyes.

I'm not even thinking about Cgirls post..some people just love to stir, best thing is to ignore them.

Thanks, upwind, but surely if you replace the black ball you're starting afresh and the odds should be back to 1 in 6. I understand the 1/6 x 1/6 mathematical view making it 1/36 but in real life situations it doesn't work. And you're right about the chances possibly being higher. It's like saying it rained on tuesday so it's less likely to rain on wednesday when in actual fact the weather conditions make it more likely to rain again.

I hope her husband and her son have lots of support.

Hate the way she, Angela Cannings and other women are/were demonised during their trials.

Had a bit of a cry when I saw this on the news last night. Scary that what happened to her could happen to any bereaved mother.

As someone said earlier, hope she's found peace.

Good post Edam.

just had a look at the link you posted xenia - it's truly horrible

whoever wrote it should be thinking long and hard about it today.

I was thinking of B***e but didn't want to put the name as some people were spying on her threads here.

Why tf has Meadows been allowed to get away with this? I just don't get it.

DiL - as DC would say, because they're all arts grads and don't understand statistics.

Terrible news, poor woman.

Corkgirl, the information about Sally Clarke's drinking is from the prosecution. Not exactly unbiased, as they also had her down as a rabid babykiller. You state that she damaged her babies by drinking in pregnancy. It was established that they both died of specific causes, nothing to do with alcohol. And as far as i know, the third child is in good health, not "damaged" at all.

ssd, yes, it's hard to be objective in the press and kind. If she had a prior history of mental and alcoholism problems before any of the babies died then the fact she dies now and has been depressed and people reading the paper probably do all want to know was she likely to have committed suicide, if indeed she did, then it may be appropriate for a journalist to mention that. I don't know. It must be very hard to decide what to put in the press. I expect the last thing any of her famliy want is a single press article about this or even threads on mumsnet about it etc.

A very good argument for moving away from the specialized A-level (or whatever the hell you call it now) system and moving towards a more generalized system like the Intl Bac. That was you might end up with Doctors who understand statistics and can communicate clearly with the public. And artists/writers/journalists and lay people who can understand basic statistics.

I think corkgirl's dh is a doctor, maybe she is feeling a little sensitive to the disparaging of the medical community. However, personally I think the medical community and social services deserve a huge amount of criticism about the handling of Sally Clarke's case and all the other Roy Meadows travesties.

If Sally Clarke's was depressed before, during or after her pregnancies the appropriate and medically responsible thing to do would have been to treat that illness. You don't tell someone with cancer to buck up and deal with it.
Perhaps if she really did go to work drunk, her employers should have figured out how to help her, get her treatment and less stress rather than firing her. Sounds to me like a classic example of the discrimination and harrasment that women of childbearing age get in high powered (and low powered) jobs in the uk. (personally I was constantly harrassed and humiliated by my boss and the company accountant when I was pregnant and after I had returned to work after my maternity leave). Normally I am a fighter, but my hormones were so erratic that I just cried and took it. (and drank a lot more than I ever had in my whole life)

I'm just so sorry you don't have the option in the uk to sue people and have it make a difference. I know that it's overused and abused here in the usa, but it does keep the medical community a lot more on their toes and accountable to their patients and the public.