Mother ‘can start to grieve for children’

DONNA ANTHONY can now finally start grieving for her two children, after serving almost seven years in jail following her wrongful conviction for their deaths, her solicitor said.

The 31-year-old was jailed for life at Bristol Crown Court in 1998 for the murder of her 11-month-old daughter Jordan in February 1996 and four-month-old son Michael in March 1997.

An ashen-faced Ms Anthony did not speak as she emerged from London’s High Court. Her solicitor George Hawks read out a statement on her behalf.

He said that she was “still very overwhelmed” by yesterday’s events.

“As you can imagine, this is a day of very mixed emotions,” the statement said.

“Donna is of course very, very much relieved that after nearly seven years of prison she is a free woman.

“It is also a very difficult day as finally she is going to have to come to terms to grieve properly for the two children she lost.

“She was convicted of the worst crime any mother can be convicted of - the murder of her own babies - but there was no direct evidence that she had done any such thing.

“She was condemned by theory based on suspicion which was masquerading as medical opinion, and it was completely wrong.

“Jordan and Michael’s deaths were unexplained at the time.

“The case against Donna was completely flawed and she is absolutely shattered about what has happened to her over the last seven years.”

Mr Hawks said that she wanted to thank everyone who had supported her, prison staff and her lawyers.

He added: “Today has just been about winning Donna’s freedom.

“What she really deserves, and all other mothers in her situation, is justice.”

He said that no compensation could right the wrongs suffered by Ms Anthony and other mothers like her.

Ms Anthony, whose story has been bought by a newspaper, was bundled into a waiting car after the statement was read.

Lord Justice Judge said confidence in statistical evidence given by the two most important medical experts called by the crown in Ms Anthony’s original trial was now “significantly undermined.”

He said that the logical conclusion was that if the case was to have proceeded today, rather than in 1998, the medical evidence called on behalf of the crown, looked at overall, would have seemed “less compelling” than it seemed at trial - while there would have been more persuasive expert medical evidence available to the defence.

He concluded that, notwithstanding disturbing features about Ms Anthony’s behaviour, if the unchallenged new evidence had been available at trial, the decision of the jury might well have been different.

Also, if the judgment in similar appeals had been available to the trial judge, he would have ensured that evidence given by the experts would have taken a different route and he would have summed up differently.

“In the circumstances, we are persuaded that the convictions are unsafe and should be quashed.”

Lord Justice Judge said that on the evidence called before the jury at the time of Ms Anthony’s trial they had been “fully entitled to convict the appellant of murder”.

Ms Anthony’s counsel, Ray Tully, said expert evidence presented at trial was flawed in a number of different respects and there was fresh evidence with regard to a potential natural cause of death in the case of Ms Anthony’s son Michael.

Mr Tully said research published in The Lancet medical journal went “to the very heart of the issue”.

“I submit that, based upon that data, one can properly state that the present medical evidence indicates that it is nine times more likely that a second death is natural rather than unnatural.”

Mr Tully told the court: “The present case is one in which the expert evidence was clearly presented before the jury on the basis identified in other cases as being incorrect, namely the ‘lightning does not strike twice approach’.”

That approach, he said, was inherent in the evidence of all four experts called by the crown.

Professor Roy Meadow, he said, “is considered to be the principal proponent of the ‘lightning does not strike twice’ theory” and was “undoubtedly the most important witness” for the prosecution.

Paul Dunkels QC, for the prosecution, told the judges: “It is accepted on behalf of the crown that the expert evidence that was given at the trial used the fact of two deaths in a way that is now undermined by the analysis of the data published in The Lancet in January this year.”