'Every day prisoners call me a baby-killing bitch'

Donna Anthony was just 22 when toddler Jordan suddenly stopped breathing in February 1996.

She had suffered respiratory attacks before, but on this occasion Ms Anthony could not revive her 11-month-old daughter, despite giving mouth-to-mouth. A postmortem proved inconclusive and the coroner ruled it was a cot death.

Then, a year later, her four-monthold son Michael, who had been released from hospital hours earlier, also stopped breathing.

Doctors restarted his heart but he had brain damage and Ms Anthony and husband Dean agreed to have his life-support system switched off.

Finally, in 1998, after a police inquiry based on little hard evidence and assisted by Sir Roy

Meadow, Ms Anthony was found guilty of murdering her children and sentenced to life in prison.

The jury heard a button was found in Jordan's stomach. Sir Roy was asked if the child could have choked on it. His reply: "Accidental ingestion of foreign bodies, so common in older toddlers and children, is really rare under the age of one year." Studies have since shown youngsters of a similar age to Jordan are quite capable of picking up objects.

Sir Roy said the odds against two natural cot deaths were a million to one. The case is given priority by the review commission. Ms Anthony, now 30 and in Durham Prison, said: "They call me a baby-killing bitch every day. But I didn't kill my children - I loved them."