The law is torturing an innocent mother
By Ken Norman
The cruellest miscarriage of justice in Britain today? It must be the conviction and two life sentences passed on Mrs Maxine Robinson, of Chester-le-Street, County Durham, for the supposed murder of her two infant children on June 29, 1993. The verdict was contrary to expert evidence.
Little Christine, aged 19 months, and her five-month-old baby brother Anthony, had been put to bed in separate rooms after a happy afternoon splashing in a paddling pond on the hottest day of their lives. Three hours later Maxine found them dead. There was no indication as to how they had died: police said "at the moment we simply have no answers. We are keeping an open mind, treating the deaths as sudden but not suspicious." A post-mortem failed to establish an obvious cause of death. "We believe it may be something in their genes," said their father, Peter, in an interview on Tyne-Tees TV. "We checked them regularly. At 9.30 p.m. they were sleeping peacefully and at ten o'clock my wife found them. She came downstairs very upset saying she thought they were dead." (Note how his words changed later). Samples from the children's bodies were being tested for drugs said the Northern Echo.
A month later, the news was that Peter and Maxine were "still being questioned by police last night after being arrested." The police would not confirm or deny that Home Office forensic tests indicated some form of poisoning. After 36 hours the couple were released but ordered to answer bail 24 hours after the double funeral. Then by letter Peter and Maxine were informed they were no longer required to answer bail and no decision would be made until latest developments were finalised: Home Office pathologist Dr James Sunter had told an inquest that he believed the children died of suffocation, but this was strongly challenged by another pathologist. Drugs, poison, suffocation. Obviously, there was no unquestionable cause of death.
Three months later (Dec 31, 1993) Maxine was charged with murdering her two children and detained in custody. She refused to plead guilty to manslaughter, declaring herself innocent. On the day before the children’s funeral Peter (arrested three times), had made a statement implicating his wife. Police had told him (falsely) that the deaths were not due to natural causes. "I knew I hadn't harmed my children in any way so it must have been Maxine," he said. The whole of 1994 was spent on remand in custody, then Maxine was convicted by majority verdict on April 11, 1995, the trial having been moved to Sheffield to avoid possible local prejudice.
Yet there were peculiarities. The prosecuting counsel gave lengthy and detailed evidence to prove that the children had been suffocated by a pillow at about 7.30 p.m. Professor Bernard Knight, since retired, but perhaps Britain's most eminent pathologist, who gave evidence for the defence that the deaths were natural, was not aware of what the prosecution had alleged, until I sent him a transcript in January 1997. He was incensed by it: "This is so wrong as to be a travesty of pathological knowledge. . . . I consider this inference to be utterly speculative, pejorative and unjust . . . speculation tailored to suit a preconceived notion. . . . Absolute nonsense dressed up in scientific jargon. Nothing in the pathological findings in these cases is indicative of suffocation. Any findings - or their absence - are consistent with suffocation but equally consistent with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome." Another authority on cot death, Professor of Pathology Peter Berry, gave the opinion the deaths were natural, and still says so.
Astoundingly, after a brief appeal - for which legal aid was denied, so that the defence, unpaid, could not even afford a transcript of the trial - Lord Justice McCowan said the claim that the babies had died from SIDS was "not supported by medical evidence." Detailed pathological reports by two professors were ignored. Only one (more junior) pathologist, Dr Sunter, was believed. There was no motive or hard fact put forward at the trial or the appeal. Perhaps the most damning evidence; Peter said his wife had come downstairs to announce the deaths 'showing not a sign of emotion,' - 'totally devoid of any anxieties or emotion.' In a series of statements to the police and in television interviews his original words describing this one moment had been `hysterically screaming,' - 'very upset,' - 'in an emotional state,' gradually changing over the months to 'emotional but not shedding tears,' - 'a tremor in her voice,' then (on Sept. 21) 'calm.' A neighbour who within moments had answered the cries of alarm described Maxine as 'crying her eyes out.'
The words of Lord Justice McCowan, dismissing the appeal, were (without question) she had told her husband 'in a calm voice' that the `bairns were dead.' Mr Robinson (said Lord McCowan) had lied when he told police he checked the children some two hours after the estimated time of death. He was considered a 'guileful man' by neighbours (the judge added) but his explanation that he had not wanted people to think he neglected them was 'not unconvincing.' Had he not been a vital prosecution witness would the series of lies have been so lightly ignored? The first statement to police was: "At about 9.30 p.m. I paid a visit to each of the children's rooms to make sure they were all right. I put the light on in their bedrooms and found that both children seemed to be all right although they did not stir."
Later he elaborated on this, saying there was good reason to believe they were alive because Christine had sighed and Anthony had made a movement. On June 30 he told the police he had taken a bottle of feed up to Anthony during the 9.30 p.m. visit. "As I opened the door I saw him move. I put the light on. He appeared fine." He had then gone into Christine's room. "I put the light on. She made a deep sigh and smacked her lips so I was happy she was also fine."
On August 11, Mr Robinson was told by police that the children had died considerably before 9.30 p.m.; for the first time he denied visiting them (and the law took no further steps against him.) This was a calculated ploy. The police must have known the approximate time of deaths during Mr Robinson’s first interview; they chose to lead him on into more and more elaborations, until the trap was sprung. He could be prosecuted at the very least for wasting police time, and possibly for murder. Instead he became the only vital witness against his wife. (As husband he could not legally be forced to testify.)
No motive could be found for murder. "There were no clues," Det. Chief Insp. Taylor told the Press after Maxine had been convicted. "This wasn't like a normal inquiry because from the start it could only have been one of two people, Maxine or Peter Robinson, if it was murder. In the early days what took up the time was proving the deaths couldn't have been from some other cause." It had been, he said, one of the most difficult cases ever conducted by the force.
If it was murder! The difficult problem was to find any evidence of unnatural death. Every innuendo had to be given huge significance. The Crown’s case (the Prosecutor told the appeal court) rested on Maxine’s "contrived excuse to visit the babies' bedrooms at 10 o’clock (and found them dead) when she said she heard a baby crying.” The comment of a doctor, Mary Anderson, on this: “In the first two years after each of my children were born I was forever hearing them crying in my head, and often looked in on them for no reason. So from my own experience there is nothing strange in her behaviour. Does it need an expert to stand up in court and say it?”
The greatest factor in swaying the jury - apart from Peter’s evidence - was that Maxine, in her previous marriage four years earlier, had suffered the cot death of an infant, Victoria. There had been no arrest or prosecution, otherwise disclosure of this tragedy would have been banned. With the jury absent, the Prosecutor argued that mention was inevitable. "The death of Victoria was a terrible tragedy for the defendant. It was a death in entirely innocent circumstances, for which she need feel no responsibility at all," he said. And so, because of Maxine’s “entire innocence,” permission was given. Mr Justice Mitchell told the jury: "Cast it from your minds for it must have no bearing upon your considerations." Surely any attempt to cast away information must make it more memorable. But, as the prosecution realised, the case would have failed without this disclosure.
Three similar deaths, to children of one mother. Could this possibly be coincidental? Although near-simultaneous cot deaths have happened to twin babies (Professor Knight had given evidence that he personally knew of 30 such cases) "it was highly unlikely in the case of siblings separated in age by many months," said Lord Justice McCowan.
But what is the definition of `highly unlikely'? It is unlikely that you have a cold; rather unlikely that you have cancer; very unlikely that you have meningitis; highly unlikely that you will win the week's lottery jackpot; extremely unlikely that you suffer from Proteus Syndrome. (According to the `New Scientist,' this was the illness afflicting the Elephant Man, who was displayed as a Victorian circus freak - so rare that only about 100 cases have been recorded.) But however rare, this does not mean that the Elephant Man's disfigurement was unnatural - making nonsense of the argument for upholding Maxine's conviction. Some types of illness can be highly unlikely, but they do occur to unfortunate folk.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is responsible for the deaths of more children than any other cause, and total a hundred times the number of infanticides or murders. It is a syndrome, not a disease; a cocktail of minor ailments, each perhaps undetectable, which when activated by something trivial (perhaps a cold or snuffles) result in painless death during sleep. Any medical textbook will tell you there are thousands of possible combinations which were not made known at Maxine's trial.
Here is one: Maxine has suffered throughout her life with eczema and with hives; both are inheritable, can be triggered by sunlight, and can affect the larynx. In near-related form of angioneurotic oedema severe attacks bring temporary painless swelling in the throat which may need tracheotomy (cutting a hole in the windpipe) to prevent suffocation. All three of Maxine's children - for the first time in their brief lives - spent the hottest day they had known splashing about in brand-new plastic paddling ponds in sunshine. Each was put to bed and died peacefully a few hours later.
Also not known to the jury: "The Lancet" recently published research by Rajat Mathur and Dr Neil Douglas, from the respiratory medicine unit at Edinburgh University. Adults who snore heavily have a facial structure which narrows the upper airways. In a survey of 29 such adults and 35 "normal" families, there were eight unexpected and unexplained infant deaths among the snorers' children and none in the other families. Two of the snorers lost two children, including twins. Peter Robinson is said to snore heavily; so does Maxine, and her parents. The children were at exceptional risk.
This is far more than coincidence, giving very strong evidence that Maxine did NOT murder her children. She has photographs of them on the walls of her prison cell. At first, in Durham Jail, Maxine was loathed as a child killer, and had boiling water thrown in her face. Now fellow-prisoners - or at least some of them - believe she was falsely convicted and want her freed. They know her far better than the judges or jury did.
Maxine is a thrice-bereaved, caring mother suffering the torment of the damned . . . and all because on occasions she saved the lives of both Christine and Anthony. Christine, known to be at risk of SIDS, was given an apnoea monitor which triggered an alarm several times when her breathing ceased; each time Maxine or Peter revived her. But by the age of 12 months she had learned how to trigger the monitor at will, so it was taken away. Anthony was offered a monitor but his father refused it. He suffered a breathing-stoppage, was revived by Maxine, and rushed to hospital.
Had any of these near-misses resulted in death there would have been no suggestion of suffocation and Maxine would never have been arrested. Her care for the children has resulted in two life sentences. After more than four years in jail she still denies guilt, knowing this means there is no chance of parole. Has there ever been a greater irony or a more savage miscarriage of justice?
Prof. Bernard Knight: "The obvious cause of death is SIDS, which is really a euphemism for `unknown.’ The speculation about suffocation persuaded the jury even though in reality it was bereft of objective proof. Finding an alternative cause, which now can never be proved (and probably could not have, even at the time) is a matter for clinical biochemists, geneticists and paediatricians."
Professor Richard Lacey: "Although I am not an expert in this field, there is enough here to create extreme unease. Surely the basis of our legal system is that without very strong evidence the accused should be given the benefit of the doubt. There is no evidence presented at all that I can see, that these deaths were due to murder by the mother."
Prof. R R A Coombs: "I believe the children became over-excited during their afternoon play, or that the swallowing of surfactants from washing-up liquid triggered milk regurgitation and anaphylactic shock." (Used in the paddling pool).
Dr A W Frankland, Harley Street: "I cannot understand why these deaths were put down as murder by the mother. I am sure that these two children died of SIDS. Were eosinophils present? Did milk allergy and milk regurgitation cause anaphylactic deaths? Did the children have acute allergic reaction?"
Recurrence incidence of SIDS
Archives of Disease in Childhood, 1988, 63, 924-930.
Families in which two or more siblings died from SIDS differed from families in which only one infant died from SIDS in several ways. More infants were over 12 months old, and the mothers had an increased incidence of previous miscarriage and threatened miscarriage. In one family both infants had broncomalacia. We have identified a small subgroup (8%) with a significantly increased risk of recurrence.
If this story upsets you as much as me, print it out and send it to your M.P.