Appeals court told woman's sentence barbaric : Melbourne Indymedia

Appeal: Folbigg's
lawyers argue her
sentence is barbaric.
But is she guilty? When
she has maintains her'
innocence? And what
about "Meadows law" ?

[File photo] (Rooters)

The Court of Criminal Appeal in New South Wales has been told the 40 year jail sentence for a Hunter Valley woman who killed her four children was barbaric.

Kathleen Folbigg is appealing against her sentence and convictions.

Folbigg was sentenced to 40 years in jail in 2003 after being found guilty of the murder of three of her children and the manslaughter of a fourth?

The deaths of the babies, who were aged between 19-days-old and 19-months-old, occurred over 10 years from 1989.

In appealing against the convictions and sentence today, Folbigg's barrister David Jackson QC told the Court of Criminal Appeal that the guilty verdicts were unreasonable because the deaths of each child should have been tried before separate juries.

He also told the court the overall sentence of 40 years was extraordinary and barbaric.

The Court of Criminal Appeal reserved its decision but don't hold your breath.

I think based on the two links below David Jackson QC could have argued more points!

The question is why didn't he argue against "Meadows law"?

Disturbing similarities between the case of Kathleen Folbigg and that of Sally Clark (nb. Other Meadows cases Trupti Patel, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony, Margaret Smith, Julie Ferris, Maxine Robinson) using "Meadows law" one cot death is tragic, two suspicious, three murder." The Attorney-General in England is reviewing more than 250 cases where a parent may have been wrongly convicted. In other words, Professor Meadows evidence has been totally discredited. There is a furore in England, but no mention in Australian press?

Mrs Cannings was freed when her conviction for murdering her two babies was quashed because the judges came to doubt the medical evidence on which it was based.

Specifically, they were concerned about the approach adopted by the prosecution expert, Sir Roy Meadow, a retired paediatrician whose rule of thumb was: unless proven otherwise, one cot death is tragedy, two is suspicious, and three is murder.

Related:

Experts in child abuse cases face inquiry

Mrs Hodge said: "The results of this initial survey should not give rise to complacency that the interests of children and families are being optimally served. Widespread concern has been expressed about the quality and validity of evidence given by medical expert witnesses following the recent appeals against convictions of mothers alleged to have been responsible for killing their children."

More: http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/front.php3?article_id=42647

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and The Kathleen

A panel of international experts disagreed and unanimously testified they had never heard of four children in the same family dying of SIDS. It was claimed the odds of it occurring within the same family was a staggering one in one trillion. Despite those odds a disturbing similarity has emerged between the Folbigg case and 258 similar British cases of infanticide where parents convicted of killing

More: http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=46813

Folbigg, convicted until proven innocent

Convicted August 2003 for the manslaughter of her eldest child Caleb, and the murder of her next three children, Patrick, Sarah and Laura.

Disturbing similarities between the case of Kathleen Folbigg and that of Sally Clark (nb. Other Meadows cases Trupti Patel, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony, Margaret Smith, Julie Ferris, Maxine Robinson) using "Meadows law" one cot death is tragic, two suspicious, three murder." The Attorney-General in England is reviewing more than 250 cases where a parent may have been wrongly convicted. In other words, Professor Meadows evidence has been totally discredited. There is a furore in England, but no mention in Australian press?

More: http://www.geocities.com/nswcn13/archive04/2004a25

Experts in child abuse cases face inquiry

UK: The government launched an official inquiry into the quality of expert medical evidence in child abuse cases last Thursday, as the implications of the miscarriage of justice in the Angela Cannings case continued to perplex ministers.

More: http://www.geocities.com/nswcn13/archive04/2004c24.html