Angela Cannings was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the UK in 2002 for the murder of her seven-week-old son, Jason, who died in 1991, and of her 18-week-old son Matthew, who died in 1999. Her first child, Gemma, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in 1989 at the age of 13 weeks, although she was never charged in connection with Gemma's death.
Her conviction was based on claims that she had smothered the children, but was overturned as unsafe by the Court of Appeal on 10 December 2003.[1] Cannings was convicted after the testimony of Professor Sir Roy Meadow, a paediatrician who was later struck off, then reinstated, by the General Medical Council.[2] Another expert witness for the prosecution was neonatologist Martin Ward Platt. Her defence solicitor was Bill Bache.[3]
The Cannings case was re-examined after a BBC "Real Story" investigation showed that her paternal great-grandmother had suffered one sudden infant death and her paternal grandmother two. Professor Michael Patton, a clinical geneticist at St George's Hospital Medical School, told the BBC that a genetic inheritance was the most likely explanation for the crib deaths in the family.[4]
- ^ "Mother cleared of killing sons", BBC News, 10 December 2003.
- ^ Doward, Jamie. "Parents demand gag on cot death doctor's lectures" Archived 23 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, The Observer, 16 January 2005.
- ^ "Solicitor from landmark cot death case dies of Covid aged 77". Salisbury Journal. 21 April 2021.
- ^ "Doubts case over baby deaths case", BBC News, 2 November 2003.