Angela Cannings
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 2002 of 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
Sudden infant death syndrome
Sudden infant death syndrome is marked by the sudden death of an infant that is unexpected by medical history, and remains unexplained after a thorough forensic autopsy and a detailed death scene investigation. An infant is at the highest risk for SIDS during sleep, which is why it is sometimes...
(SIDS) in 1989 at the age of 13 weeks, although she was never charged in connection with Gemma's death.
Her conviction (for which she received life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
) was based on claims that she had smothered the children, but was overturned as unsafe by the Court of Appeal
Court of Appeal of England and Wales
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales is the second most senior court in the English legal system, with only the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom above it...
on 10 December 2003. Cannings was convicted after the involvement in her case of Professor Sir Roy Meadow
Roy Meadow
Sir Samuel Roy Meadow is a British paediatrician and professor, who rose to initial fame for his 1977 academic paper on the now controversial Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and his crusade against parents who, he believes, wilfully harm or kill their children. He was knighted for these works...
, a controversial pediatrician who was later struck off, then reinstated, by the General Medical Council.
The Cannings case was re-examined after a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
"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.
Involvement of Roy Meadow
Expert witness Professor Sir Roy MeadowRoy Meadow
Sir Samuel Roy Meadow is a British paediatrician and professor, who rose to initial fame for his 1977 academic paper on the now controversial Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy and his crusade against parents who, he believes, wilfully harm or kill their children. He was knighted for these works...
was later temporarily struck off the General Medical Council
General Medical Council
The General Medical Council registers and regulates doctors practising in the United Kingdom. It has the power to revoke or restrict a doctor's registration if it deems them unfit to practise...
register partly as a result of his evidence at the Cannings trial. Meadow based his calculations on the likelihood of a second cot death being the same as the likelihood of a first, whereas in households where one crib death has taken place, the probability
Probability
Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...
of another is greatly increased. He also asserted that as the children were previously in good health, this made crib death implausible (which was contrary to the opinion of other specialists). Cannings later said Meadow should be "severely punished" for his testimony in her case and others.
Other cases
The quashing of Cannings convictions and other high-profile cases resulted in a review of 297 other cases where conviction relied on expert witness opinion. On 14 February 2006, Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney GeneralAttorney General for England and Wales
Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales, usually known simply as the Attorney General, is one of the Law Officers of the Crown. Along with the subordinate Solicitor General for England and Wales, the Attorney General serves as the chief legal adviser of the Crown and its government in...
, announced that three of these cases needed to be reconsidered by the courts, but that the majority did not give rise to concern.
See also
- Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
- Donna AnthonyDonna AnthonyDonna Anthony is a British woman from Somerset who was jailed in 1998 after being convicted of the murder of her two babies. She was cleared and freed after having spent more than six years in prison....
- Sally ClarkSally ClarkSally Clark was a British solicitor who became the victim of an infamous miscarriage of justice when she was wrongly convicted of the murder of two of her sons in 1999...
- Sudden Infant Death SyndromeSudden infant death syndromeSudden infant death syndrome is marked by the sudden death of an infant that is unexpected by medical history, and remains unexplained after a thorough forensic autopsy and a detailed death scene investigation. An infant is at the highest risk for SIDS during sleep, which is why it is sometimes...
- Trupti PatelTrupti PatelTrupti Patel is a qualified pharmacist from Berkshire, England, who was acquitted in 2003 of murdering three of her children, Amar , Jamie , and Mia ....
Further reading
- Cannings, Angela. Against All Odds: The Angela Cannings Story, Little, Brown Book Group, 2006. ISBN 0-316-73304-5
- Sweeney, John. "In the shadows of justice", The Guardian, June 19, 2006.