Baby deaths mother set to be freed

A mother who claims she was wrongly convicted of killing her two children is expected to be cleared and freed from prison by the Court of Appeal today.

Prosecution lawyers have indicated they will not oppose an appeal by Donna Anthony, 31, who was jailed for life in 1998 at Bristol Crown Court for murdering her 11-month-old daughter Jordan and four-month-old son Michael.

The case against her relied on evidence from paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow, whose evidence in other cases has been discredited.

Anthony, of Yeovil, Somerset, always claimed both children were victims of cot death and not smothering as alleged by the prosecution, but her original appeal in June 2000 was dismissed.

Last month the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) said it was sending her case back to the Court of Appeal after considering "new expert medical evidence". Anthony has spent the past six years in jail. "They [inmates] call me a baby-killing bitch every day," she once said. "But I didn't kill my children - I loved them."

Anthony's solicitor, George Hawkes, said he had always thought his client had an excellent case but said today's decision was "not cut and dried". He said the appeal was based on two factors - that the medical evidence had been shown to be "completely flawed" and fresh evidence that showed her second child died of natural causes.

Asked about what Anthony would do on her release, he said: "I don't think she'd want to even think about it because over the years things have gone so badly for her that I don't think she's going to believe it until it happens."

He said he was pleased the Metropolitan Police had introduced specialist teams to deal with similar cases, but added: "The medical profession need to look at themselves very closely and see how this occurred, because the evidence that Donna was convicted on had become accepted medical practice at the time and that problem doesn't ever seem to have been addressed by the medical profession."

Since Anthony was jailed, her husband - a prosecution witness at her trial - has divorced her, while her mother has died. The case of Anthony, held at Bronzefield Jail in Ashford was one of 28 referred to the CCRC after the quashing of the conviction of Angela Cannings in January last year.

Mrs Cannings was cleared on appeal of killing two of her sons, sevenweekold Jason and 18-week-old Matthew. Anthony's appeal is to be followed later by a similar case in which Chah' Oh-Niyol Kai-Whitewind is challenging her conviction of murdering her 12-week-old son. Sir Roy is facing an inquiry by the General Medical Council into allegations of serious professional misconduct. He developed the theory that some women may deliberately harm their babies in order to draw attention to themselves - a condition he called Munchausen's syndrome by proxy.

His theories were widely adopted over the past two decades. The mantra that one cot death is a tragedy, two are grounds for suspicion and three, unless proved otherwise, are murder helped to convict mothers at a number of trials.

But Trupti Patel, accused of murdering her three babies, was acquitted after doubts were cast on the validity of the so-called Meadow's Law while Sally Clark, a Manchester solicitor, had her conviction quashed on appeal. The cases prompted Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, to review all convictions in which Sir Roy gave evidence.