http://www.itv.com/news/1335100.html


Sally Clark's statement on video on the website


Mother cleared of sons' deaths
16.12PM GMT, 29 Jan 2003
Solicitor Sally Clark, who was convicted of the murder of her two baby
boys, has been freed by the Court of Appeal.

Her legal team argued that that crucial medical evidence which could have
proved her innocence was kept from her defence team.

Mrs Clark, 38, dissolved into tears when Lord Justice Kay, Mr Justice
Holland and Mrs Justice Hallett made their announcement.

Her lawyer husband, Stephen, clasped his hands to his face as though in
prayer, nodding and smiling in her direction.

Speaking outside the court, Mrs Clark said: "We are not victorious. There
are no winners here. We have all lost.

"We simply feel relieved that our nightmare is finally at an end."

The policeman's daughter, who has always protested her innocence, was
jailed for life in November 1999 at Chester Crown Court.

She was convicted of smothering 11-week-old Christopher and shaking
eight-week-old Harry to death at the family home in Wilmslow, Cheshire.

But Lord Justice Kay said the court was now satisfied that Mrs Clark did
not have a fair trial.

The judges were told that medical evidence which could have cleared Mrs
Clark was "kept secret" from her defence team and caused a "serious
miscarriage of justice".

Lord Justice Kay, referring to the jury being deprived of that evidence,
said: "This resulted from the failure of the pathologist to share with
other doctors investigating the cause of death."

He added: "We have no doubt that the resulting convictions are, therefore,
unsafe and must be quashed."

Her original conviction was partially secured by a damning statistic about
whether losing two babies to cot death could be considered a coincidence.

Jurors heard from an eminent professor, Sir Roy Meadow, who told them that
multiple infant deaths should always be treated with suspicion.

He explained that the likelihood of two infant deaths in the same family
was one in 73 million.

But the Royal Statistical Society took the unprecedented step of writing to
the Lord Chancellor stating "there was no statistical basis" for the figure.

Among other bodies, the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths has
evidence that second cot deaths in the same family occur "roughly once a
year".

And in 2001, scientists at Manchester University discovered a genetic link
among cases of sudden infant death syndrome, suggesting that multiple cases
like Mrs Clark's could be more likely than previously thought.

 Sally Clark's statement