Britain's Court of Appeal called today for a halt to the prosecution of parents for murdering their babies when expert evidence points to the possibility of "cot death".
Medical science was "still at the frontiers of knowledge" about unexplained infant deaths, said Lord Justice Judge, giving the court's reasons for its decision last month to clear Mrs Angela Cannings of murdering her two baby sons.
"Necessarily, further research is needed and fortunately, thanks to the dedication of the medical profession, it is continuing," he said.
All this suggested that, for the time being, where a full investigation into two or more sudden unexplained infant deaths in the same family was followed by a serious disagreement between reputable experts about the cause of death, and natural causes could not be excluded as a reasonable possibility, "the prosecution of a parents or parents for murder should not be started or continued unless there is additional cogent evidence".
The judge, sitting with Mrs Justice Rafferty and Mr Justice Pitchers, said: "In cases like the present, if the outcome of the trial depends exclusively or almost exclusively on a serious disagreement between distinguished and reputable experts, it will often be unwise, and therefore unsafe, to proceed.
"Unless we are sure of guilt, the dreadful possibility always remains that a mother, already brutally scarred by the unexplained deaths of her babies, may find herself in prison for life for killing them when she should not be there at all," the judge said.
PA