Peter Feldschreiber and Carl Peck discuss what can be done to prevent future miscarriages of justice in cases of sudden infant death syndrome
In 1999 Sally Clark was convicted in the crown court at Chester of the murder of her infant sons, Christopher and Harry. In the absence of crucial evidence that was later forthcoming, Clark’s first appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed on 2 October 2000, based in part upon judicial endorsement of a prosecution witness’s opinion that the chances of two successive natural infant deaths is one in 73 million.
On 2 July 2002, the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Clark’s case back to the Court of Appeal as unsafe due to newly introduced evidence of natural causes of death. The court confirmed the convictions to be unsafe and set them aside. Mrs Clar...
