In the United Kingdom, in September 1996, lawyer couple Steve and Sally Clark were overjoyed: on September 22, their son, Christopher, was born. Sally decided not to work for a few months and to stay at home with the child. Everything seemed normal until Dec. 13, when Sally went down to the kitchen to get herself something to drink. When she returned to the bedroom, she found the baby gray-faced in his bassinet.
She called an ambulance, which quickly took the child to the hospital, but unfortunately the little boy could not be saved. After Christopher's death, Sally resumed her professional activities, but while she properly pursued her work, she and her husband experienced a period of grief, depression and despair.
When the couple became pregnant again, the joy was great: on November 29, 1997, healthy little Harry was born. Like all younger siblings of infants who pass away in England, the baby was closely monitored. After the parents had put him down for a nap and checked on him again a little later, little Harry had turned pale. Steve rushed back into the bedroom, laid the child on the floor and tried to revive him. An ambulance drove the couple and the child to the hospital. But again, doctors were unable to save the child's life.
An autopsy was ordered, after which the pathologist believed there was sufficient evidence of maltreatment that warranted a full investigation. Sally Clark was arrested for the murder of her two children. Sally was tried at Chester Crown Court.
But then the distinguished pediatrician Sir Roy Meadow took the witness stand. Charming and jovial, Meadow was by all appearances full of sympathy for the defendant's suffering, took condemning words only hesitantly, which made his accusations more effective. He exuded competence, experience, skill, and kindness. As she listened to his testimony, Sally was paralyzed. "If I hadn't known I was innocent," she later said, "I would have been listening to him like that, I would have thought I was guilty.“ On the witness stand, Meadow felt it was important to share his knowledge, experience and conclusions to the judge and jury. Statistical research showed that ,,the likelihood of a crib death in a family of the Clarks' social status is about 1 in 8543," explained Meadow. "This means that the probability of two such deaths occurring in the same family is equal to the square of that number:
1 in 73 million"
On Nov. 9, 1999, by a vote of ten to two, Sally Clark was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
...and how did it turn out for Sally Clark?
In fact, doubts about the accuracy of the verdict arose immediately after it was handed down. Various scientists pointed out that the probability of dying of sudden infant death syndrome was of sudden infant death syndrome is significantly higher if a sibling has already died from it. Nevertheless, years passed before Sir Roy Meadows' opinion was officially challenged. It later turned out that a staphylococcus aureus infection caused both deaths. Sally Clark was acquitted in a second trial. However, she died a few years later as a result of heavy alcohol abuse.
