DR. SMITH IS A GENTLE MAN, AND A RELIGIOUS ONE"..."GOD LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN," HE WHISPERED TO ME ON HIS WAY OUT OF COURT. "AS A CHRISTIAN, I WONDERED HOW DID THE LOVE OF GOD EVER PENETRATE THAT BEDROOM?"
REPORTER CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD: GLOBE AND MAIL;
One of the untold stories of the Charles Smith saga is the role that the media played in conveying the image of the brilliant, competent, wise, sensitive and caring Dr. Charles Randal Smith.
A perfect example of this phenomena is a Christie Blatchford story published in the Globe and Mail on April 18, 2002, during the gruesome trial of Tony and Marcia Dooley in connection with the death of their son Randall.
"Another day, when Dr. Charles Smith, a pediatric pathologist who has performed autopsies upon the bodies of hundreds and hundreds of children, was testifying, he could not help but remember his visit, the day Randy was found dead, to the Dooley townhouse and the small second-floor room where the boy slowly died," Blatchford wrote.
"Dr. Smith is a gentle man, and a religious one.
"God loves the little children," he whispered to me on his way out of court. "As a Christian, I wondered, how did the love of God ever penetrate that bedroom?"
Once, on his way to the downtown courthouse from the farm north of the city where he raises beef cattle, Dr. Smith thought of his own baby son, who died years ago of birth defects.
"I remembered how my wife and I willed him to live," he said. "If only I could have transferred some of that here."
And one day, this while Dr. Smith was using a video monitor to display some of the autopsy pictures of Randy's terrible injuries, he came into the courtroom a little early after the lunch break.
Up on his monitor, for just a minute before things resumed, were pictures of a darling baby calf, just born the Saturday before.
"On March 2," Dr. Smith said, making it as important a thing as it was. "At noon."
There on the monitor was Wedgewood Micah, born of Royal Lady, getting his very first bath from his mum, who licked and nuzzled him clean.
Dr. Smith carefully explained to me that when a calf is first born, the mother imprints her voice on him by lowing, with all the other cows gathering around to low too, so the calf learns to distinguish from all the voices the one calling him home."
Something is wrong with this picture.
Smith, an important witness for the Crown, is giving a columnist for a major National newspaper an interview on the very case he is testifying on in court, full of inflammatory content which risks harming the two accused persons before the court.
I have reported many murder cases over the years and cannot recollect a single case where the forensic expert didn't say words to the effect of, "I will be pleased to talk to you, Mr. Levy. After this this trial is over. "
In many trials, the expert declined any comment on the basis that a new trial might be ordered if there was a successful appealed and he or she did not want to do anything that would risk prejudicing the right of the accused person to a fair trial.
Here is another example of the way reporters used to routinely canonize Dr. Charles Randal Smith.
It is a story by my former Toronto Star colleagues Kevin Donovan and Moira Welsh, on the case of Tammy Marquhardt who had been charged with murdering her child.
"Charles Smith, pathologist, cleans up after other people's mistakes, the kind made by children's aid workers and doctors who miss or fail to act on the warning signs of children at risk," the story reads.
"His tools consist of a scalpel and scissors. The dead children he examines, most are just babies, require nothing more.
When he has completed each autopsy there is not much left of the child, just an empty sack really.
In the blinding light of his autopsy room, Ontario's leading pediatric forensic pathologist sees all the missed opportunities that could have saved a life.
And then he gently puts the child's body into a bag, and goes on to the next case."
Donovan and Welsh go on to describe the injury Smith detected by Smith as a “Spiral fracture" noting that "Too often this indicator of child abuse – a type of broken leg or arm - is dismissed as accidental by doctors. And children's aid does not think dirty. "
"Experts like Smith say this fracture of the long bone in the arm or leg typically comes from an abuser violently twisting a small limb," Donovan and Welsh continue. "All fractures in small children should be investigated but spiral fractures are red flags. .."
Something is wrong in this picture too.
As Dr. Michael Pollanen testified in the Ontario Court of Appeal, thinking dirty leads to miscarriages of justice... The forensic pathologist must approach his or her work neutrally as an objective scientist. (See previous posting: "Mullins-Johnson Acquittal Notable Quotes);
In an another story - about Jordan Heicamp, a child deprived of necessities by his mother under the watchful eyes of the Toronto Catholic Children’s Aid Society, Donovan and Welsh wrote:
"The sight of Jordan’s emaciated body sickened Dr. Charles Smith, a hospital pathologist who has seen hundreds of abused and neglected children."
"Smith, who describes himself as a "strong Christian," was so upset when he saw Jordan's body that he did something he never does. He swore "Holy s---," Smith said. His pathology assistant looked up in surprise," they continued.
"Smith's gentle, quiet manner is well-known by police, prosecutors and the coroner's office, who frequently rely on him when investigating child deaths.
Smith has seen every manner of abuse on the autopsy table: a child whose skin has been "degloved" by scalding water; a baby kicked and punched to death; a little girl bludgeoned to death with a hard piece of plastic pipe.
He worked in Nigeria as a young doctor 20 years ago and saw many babies who died of starvation.
"I had seen starvation in northern Nigeria after I finished medical school and this was so awful that, for a moment, I forgot myself."
"For a brief moment my tongue was not under control. This was as bad as it gets. This little wee body with ribs sticking up, just covered by skin. This was worse than anything I ever saw in Africa. For days before this baby died anybody who looked at him would have known he was in trouble.
"For him, (Smith) Jordan is also the one who so obviously fits the child protection definition of "a child at risk. "
Smith oversees much of the forensic pediatric pathology work in the province.
Another pathologist, Dr. Ernest Cutz, did the autopsy, but Smith went in to view the body and, as he so often does, make sure that the child in death receives better care than the child did in life. "
I have talked to reporters who were shocked to learn that the man they had written about so glowingly was now accused of being responsible for more miscarriages of justice than any other person in Canadian history.
To a large extent they were sucked in like the judges, police and prosecutors who allowed their horror of sexual crimes against children to cause them to suspend their usual critical judgment when it came to dealing with Dr. Charles Smith.
But there is more at play here.
Some reporters told me that Smith had an uncanny way of attracting the media: He was accessible, articulate, intense - (read photogenic) - welcomed the cameras in his labs, appeared genuinely sympathetic, provided excellent copy and knew all of the buttons to push in order to get placed above the fold.
The Goudge Inquiry has commissioned a wide variety of research papers to try and explain phenomena connected with Dr. Smith.
It's too bad the Inquiry is not looking into the role the media played in facilitating the rise of Dr. Charles Randal Smith and uncritically selling his image to the public.
Such a project might prove worthwhile.
Other posts in the "Smith and the Media" series:
Part Five: Taking on Charles Smith: A second example of fearless journalism;
Part Four: Fifth Estate probe triggers a plea to Premier Mike Harris for Inquiry into Smith cases;
Part Three: Smith of the North;
Part Two: Smith goes to India;
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