Salt poisoning couple say miscarriage of justice

[edam]

Radio 4's Today programme this morning had a piece on the couple who were convicted of killing their adoptive son by poisoning him with salt. Sounds horribly familiar from the cases of Sally Clark and Angela Cannings - the Home Office pathologist in the case (one of three who gave evidence) said there was no evidence the parents fed the child salt and their lawyers said the CPS had ignored the Appeal Court's finding in the Canning case that these cases should not be brought unless there was evidence, rather than an assumption that 'child dies, parents must have killed them'.

there's been quite a lot about this in private eye's last couple of issues, edam. meadows' name was mentioned too which i thought was really worrying. hello btw .

Wouldn't surprise me at all if they're innocent.

There seems to be an automatic assumption nowadays that all parents are just waiting for the chance to murder their children without authority finding out and there's no such thing anymore as childhood illness (which as we're not yet omnipotent as a species, we might not be able to diagnose) and childhood accidents. Where has this lunacy come from?

yes, there was an interesting article about this in the most recent Private Eye. don't think you can read that online though, unfortunately. as Hoxtonchick says, Meadows fingerprints are all over this area of medico-legal work as well.

Is this the couple who were really young and gave their child gravy mix or instant potatoes or something because they hadn't had any hv come to them? If so, the way the story was reported at the time (about 5 years ago) sounded like they were innocent enough, just made a fatal mistake. Who is Meadows by the way?

No, this is a far more recent case, where a recently adopted child died, and excessive sodium levels were found. Meadows is Professor Roy Meadows, who has been involved in controversial cases where parents have been accused of killing their children - e.g. the Sally Clarke case, and who is the leading UK "expert" on Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy.

Thanks mts. Will watch the details with interest.

But I thought they had admitted giving him salt????

so how did he get the salt in him then?

Message withdrawn

I thought they had admitted feeding him salt, too.

I didn't think they had admitted it?

According to the social services the adoptive dad did say those things - but that doesn't make him a murderer. According to the Private Eye article the little boy had been in hospital previously (i.e. before being adopted) but this was never raised in the court case and it sounds like the adoptive parents were not made aware of this previous hospital history either.

It's another case of the parents being forced to prove that they didn't do it (regardless of lack of evidence) rather than the prosecution presenting evidence that they did it. I don't know all the facts of this case, but the Private Eye article certainly makes for disturbing reading.

There was a big thing in private eye about it last week (or maybe last month - I get my copy late sometimes). The boy had lots of very strange medical conditions which weren't investigated at the trial, and he had no bruises etc (so how could they have fed him the salt? - no child would voluntarily eat 4 tsps or whatever it was)

As convictions go, it sounds like this one is dodgy as anything.

the medical report after the couple were found guilty, made it sound impossible that it had been a miscarriage of justice, from the levels of salt reported
But you do tend to veer off and hesitate hearing these cases now... Esp with Meadows name attached

This thread had links to news pages at the time of the conviction and there are quotes in it which no longer appear in the linked news reports:

it was reportedly fed through his IV in hospital

didn't read that piffle - I remember reading that the salt was given to him to eat as a punishment. How would it be a punishment if it was via IV?

yes, I've looked at all the links that seem to come from that thread, and can't find that reference to the mitigation. how odd.

He didn't have an IV until after he was unconscious and "floppy" - whatever was supposed to have happened in the house and was done by the husband (allegedly) - I hadn't heard anything about salt in IV either.

I can't believe SS could have made all that up about their attitudes and expectations. And one minute the wife felt it was OK for her to go back to work because the kids had settled in so well and the next Christian was a vegetable, behaving badly and not respecting the husband enough? It is very odd all round.

I think there may have been two different cases - certainly there has just been a conviction of a mother for putting salt in her son's IV feed. I think that was a different one from this family.

Yes I think that IV one was a different one.

This was one where they were supposed to have fed him salt as a punishment. I can't remember whether they said they'd admitted it, just that at the time, they both came over as deeply unpleasant people who had taken on a parenting role that they weren't up to. Which of course, doesn't mean that they're murderers. They might be, but if Roy Meadows is involved in their conviction, then I wouldn't hold my breath tbh.

What I did always find odd, is the idea that they gave him 4 teaspoons of salt as a punishment. It's such an ODD punishment for someone not completely mad to use. And most children wouldn't be able to swallow it without vomiting, I would have thought. (Although apparantly some sit there quite happily spooning it down! Wierd!)

One of the things I read mentioned that he used to eat a lot of crisps - in fact something quoted a figure of 6.4g of salt in one packet of crisps - and that the couple weren't happy about him doing it. So he did like the taste of salt, and maybe that was the reasoning behind the punishment - OK, you won't eat your dinner, you'd rather have crisps, you can have some extra salt and see how you like that.

I read a very interesting article querying the outcome of this case a few weeks ago. Whatever I might think about its politics, the Torygraph has been steadfast in its support for parents in these cases, esp the MSBP ones. Cassandra Jardine and James Le Fanu are their cheerleaders.

Christian

This link is the origonal one from the other thread
I read an article in a magazine all about Christians birth mother by his granma - really awful situation for them all

Blimey, over 6g of salt - recommended daily input is 3g for that age group.

salt guidelines