Goudge Inquiry; Sharon's Case; Part Eight; The Unravelling Of An "Expert."

"HE (DR. CHARLES SMITH) WISHED ME GOOD LUCK AT THE MEETING AND SAID THIS IS ONE CASE HE WISHED HE HAD NEVER SEEN;"

FROM PROSECUTOR ED BRADLEY'S NOTES OF A TELEPHONE CONVERSATION IN WHICH DR. SMITH CONCEDED THAT HIS OPINION THAT SHARON HAD DIED BECAUSE OF KNIFE AND SCISSOR INJURIES WAS WRONG - AND THAT THE DEFENCE EXPERTS WHO SAID THE INJURIES WERE CAUSED BY A DOG WERE RIGHT.

As has been demonstrated by previous posting on this Blog, the "Overview Reports" prepared by Commission staff contain some extraordinary information which most likely would not have seen the light of day had the Inquiry not been called.

One of the treasures are notes made by Prosecutor Ed Bradley of a phone call he made to Dr. Smith on January 11, 2001.

The Crown's case against Sharon Reynold's was clearly falling apart;

All of of the defence experts agreed that Sharon's injuries had been inflicted by a dog - not by knives and scissors - and now they were supported by Dr. Symes, a leading American expert on bone injuries.

Sharon's mother had been put through hell, kept in custody, and confined in a half-way house on a charge of murdering her daughter as a result of Dr. Charles Smith's pivotal opinion.

Now it looked like Sharon had been killed by a dog.

Worse, Bradley was now well aware from his colleagues and other sources of the often well-founded attacks that had been made on Smith's competence and credibility in other cases involving the deaths of children.

So one can imagine how Bradley felt as the conversation progressed to a denouement in which Smith agreed his critics were right, and wished him (Bradley) "good luck" adding that, "This is one case he (Smith) wished he had never seen."

Here are Bradley's notes of the phone call:

I had tried to reach Dr. Smith for several days prior to Christmas and was unsuccessful.

I then tried to reach him by calling his office and he was able to give me some time and answer my questions.

I started by asking about the marks on the skull as 6 or 7 of the 8 or 9 marks on the skull were described as being incision marks and it was pointed out to me that since Dr. Symes says they were created by a sharp knife or scalpel cutting at an angle perpendicular to the surface that they were either created with the scalp in tact or after the scalp had been removed.

The area of these marks is the right posterior portion of the skull in an area where it appears the scalp had been removed.

With this in mind I asked Dr. Smith how closely he had examined the portion of the scalp that had been removed.

He indicated to me that he just did a gross visual examination as the concern at the time was to get it examined for head lice as that was indicated as a possible motive for the attack.

He also said that he issue of any Marks on the skull were not of primary concern other than those that were readily visible to the human eye as at the time it seemed obvious that the other wounds were stab wounds.

He said the only marks he observed on the removed portion of the scalp were the gross marks indicated in his drawing.

He cannot say whether or not there were 6 or 7 incision marks in the removed scalp.

He packaged up the scalp and sent it to the U.S.A. to be examined for head lice and he did not see it again for 11 or 12 months.

At that time he said the scalp was not in a condition to examine it closely.

I then asked him about the injury in the thoracic inlet (the neck wound).

I read him the long paragraph from Dr. Ferris' report on page 4 (fax page 5).

It's the first complete paragraph on that page.

I asked him what he thought of those comments and he said he could understand where Dr. Ferris was coming from.

I then asked him if he could refute Dr. Ferris' comments and he said he couldn't although in his heart he thought they were wrong.

I asked him what he meant by this comment of his (Dr. Smith that is).

He stated that he never measured the depth of the wound as that didn't seem important at the time (note: this is consistent with what he said to Det. Kennedy and myself in Sept. 00).

Dr. Smith then went on to say that he had thought about this wound since our meeting and that it was quite likely that the photo of the scalpel handle in the wound was inserted to the full extent of the wound (note: this is the first time he told me this).

If is (sic) the full extent of the wound as he now thinks is likely then Dr. Ferris' observations are accurate.

I asked him if the injury in the neck was consistent with a knife wound or was it approx. circular in appearance.

He said it was roughly circular in appearance and was definitely not an injury indicative of a knife.

I asked about all of the as to whether any of them were indicative of a knife wound and he said all the wounds were basically circular in appearance although a couple might have a bit of triangular appearance.

I asked why he thought initially that scissors were involved and he said it was because of the somewhat circular appearance and the so-called bifurcated (sic) that he saw (2 or 3 of these).

I then asked him about the bifurcated wounds and put to him the suggestion of this cause as had been suggested to me by Dr. Cairns.

I said if the defence were to suggest that the dog had bit through the skin surface then had loosened its grip slightly and then reasserted its grip (assuming the victim moved slightly or the dog moved slightly) could this explain the two channelled injury?

He said yes, this would be an explanation for what he saw.

I asked if he had read Dr. Symes report and he said he had.

I then asked if he had heard of Dr. Symes and he said yes.

I asked if he accepted Dr. Symes as an expert and he said absolutely..

I asked what he thought (about) Dr. Symes reputation and Dr. Smith said he was he was very happy when he learned Dr. Symes was going to look at the child's remains as in Dr. Smith's view Dr. Symes is the leading expert in North America on tool marks and markings on human bones.

I explained that the reason for my call was that we were going to review the whole file tomorrow and I needed his input in light of Dr. Ferris' report which we go in October 00, Dr. Symes report and other info since our last meeting.

He said that in his view he realized that we would have a real difficulty with meeting (as he put it a test of the probability of conviction).

He confirmed that he has still not located the x-rays.

Also during the course of the conversation he mentioned the fact that he had in the interim met with the defence counsel.

The only thing he mentioned about the meting was that he had many of the same questions but that (he)also asked about blood testing relating to the respective injuries vis-a-vis the total number of injuries (one issue was in the context of the neck injury).

He told them that in his view he couldn't reach any conclusions about the amount of blood loss of one or two particular injuries compared to the total number of injuries.

He wished me good luck at the meeting and said this is one case he wished he had never seen.

Bradley's interview with Dr. Smith appears to have incurred the wrath of the Kingston police service.

The "overview Report" contains a "police chronology" which notes that:

"Ed Bradley phones Smith - questions him at length - puts possible causes of certain injuries to him - gets Smith to basically tell him he really didn't look close at the excised scalp which may have assisted in determining several sharp incised wounds at that location - as well he gets Smith to say that it will be very difficult now to meet the test of the probability of conviction.

"Interestingly enough, these phone calls and "cross-examination of expert witness's by Bradley was done without any knowledge of the KPD (Kingston Police Department H.L.) investigators or Bradley's other co-Crown, Jennifer Ferguson."/em>

Harold Levy; hlevy15@gmail.com;