Mother’s relief as she is cleared of killing her three babies

A MOTHER cleared of murdering three of her babies last night said she was looking forward to “getting back to some sort of normality”.

Trupti Patel, 35, sobbed and embraced her husband Jayant after she was found not guilty of the three counts of murder at Reading Crown Court.

It took the jury of 10 men and one woman just an hour-and-a-half to return the not guilty verdicts after a trial which lasted nearly six-and-a-half weeks. Mrs Patel, a qualified pharmacist, had always denied killing her two baby sons, Amar and Jamie, and baby daughter Mia, none of whom survived beyond the age of three months.

There was a loud roar of "yes" and emotional scenes among Mrs Patel's family and supporters as the foreman of the jury read out the not guilty verdicts. Many sobbed and hugged each other as the court emptied.

Speaking on the steps of the court, an emotional and clearly relieved Mrs Patel said she was "absolutely delighted" by the verdicts.

Asked whether the case should ever have been brought to court, she replied "absolutely not".

"Words cannot describe how we have been feeling," she said. "It should never have come to court."

When asked what she and her husband would be doing next, she replied: "Getting back to some sort of normality."

She added that her family, many of whom had attended every day of the trial, had been "tremendous".

"They have never wavered," she said. "That is what families are about."

It emerged yesterday that Mrs Patel was originally charged with attempting to murder her surviving child.

That charge was dropped before the case began and a not guilty verdict was entered before the start of the trial.

All three of Mrs Patel's children collapsed suddenly at the family home in Maidenhead, Berkshire, in separate incidents between 1997 and 2001.

The jury heard how Amar, who died when aged three months, had the "sniffles" for several days before his death and had had a disturbed night's sleep the night before he died.

He was eventually settled in his cot by his father at 6am on the morning of December 10, 1997, but Mrs Patel found him not breathing when she went to check on him three hours later. He was rushed to hospital where he died later, despite resuscitation attempts.

After Mrs Patel's second son Jamie died aged just 15 days and her daughter Mia died aged 22 days, the suspicions of the police were aroused and she was arrested.

During the trial, the prosecution argued that several factors pointed to Mrs Patel having suffocated her children, either by smothering them or squeezing their chests to restrict their breathing.

Prosecuting counsel Paul Dunkels QC said the fact that all three children had died without a natural cause being found despite extensive medical tests being carried out strongly suggested their deaths were unnatural.

The prosecution also pointed to the broken ribs found in Mia during the post mortem as evidence that her chest must have been squeezed. But they suffered a setback when one of their key witnesses, Professor Rupert Risdon, said these could have been caused by Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation.

Defence medical experts said the babies could have died as a result of an inherited genetic or metabolic disorder which would have been almost impossible to detect.

The prosecution also made no attempt to advance a possible motive.

Mrs Patel was described in court by her husband as a "loving and caring" mother who would never harm her children.