(A CBC Fifth Estate investigation appropriately called "Diagnosis: Murder" exposed the enormous harm Dr. Charles Smith caused to innocent parents and caregivers within Ontario's criminal justice system.
The police probe of Lianne Gagnon - after Smith turned an accidental bump on the head into a suspected homicide - comes under intense scrutiny in the documentary, which ran on November, 10, 1999.
This Blogster would love to see the CBC re-run this powerful program before Dr, Smith enters the witness box at the Goudge Inquiry on Monday under compulsion of a subpoena. (This transcript was filed as an exhibit at the Goudge Inquiry);
It makes us look directly at the human cost imposed on innocent people by Dr. Smith - and those who looked the other way as the evidence of his incompetence mounted - as contrasted with the more abstract systemic issues being explored by the Inquiry.)
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The transcript continues at the point where the Children's Aid Society has placed Lianne's name on a child abuse registry and put a plan into motion to seize the baby right after it was born - and Maurice Gagnon decides to fight back.
"When Maurice got wind of the plan, he was furious and vowed there was no way he would let strangers take away his daughter's baby.
Maurice: I knew nothing about the Children's Aid. When I started looking into it and started talking to lawyers that anger turned to fear. I didn't realize the power that these people have.
Malarek: And power it was: Lianne was not allowed to take her baby home.
Lianne: It was a nightmare. The hospital was a police zone. All the nurses were on call and they were notified that I was coming in and that I was never to be left alone with my daughter.
Malarek: Lianne's parents managed to get temporary custody of the new baby, but Lianne was only allowed to see her daughter during supervised visits. Lianne and Pierre returned to their apartment, where their lovingly prepared nursery stood empty.
Maurice realized that the only way Lianne was going to get her baby back was to prove her innocence once and for all. He dipped heavily into his retirement funds, and with The best lawyer he could find, searched for an expert; an experienced neuropathologist to review Dr. Smith's findings.
Dr. William Halliday. now head of Neuropathology at Toronto Western Hospital was that expert. Dr. Halliday concluded that Nicholas did not die from severe brain swelling and he was highly critical of Dr. Smith's methods. He noted that although Dr. Smith said the sutures were "widely" split, the radiologist's report said they were actually (indecipherable). He said that Dr. Smith's failure to consult a specialist in neuropathology was a "serious deficiency", and his conclusion of "non-accidental" went "far beyond the boundaries of scientific and forensic facts." And as for that large head, well. Nicholas was born with a large head.
Yet despite Dr. Halliday's criticisms, the Ontario Coroner's Office initially backed Dr. Smith. It took three highly critical reports before Dr. James Cairns finally took action.
Cairns: At that stage we indicated that we were going to hire an independent forensic pathologist from the United States, a Dr. Mary Case from St. Louis, Missouri. She's also an associate professor of pathology and an expert on child abuse deaths. She reviewed Dr. Smith's report.
Dr. Mary Case (expert on child abuse deaths); I disagreed with it. His conclusion was that the child had died from blunt injury to the head, and my conclusion was that I could see no head injury, so I could not make that diagnosis. To make a diagnosis of head injury, you must see something in addition to brain swelling.
Malarek: According to Dr. Case, the amount of brain swelling Nicholas suffered was only as much as occurs normally from the process of dying.
Case: In my profession as a forensic pathologist, to find that - maybe three to four per cent of all the autopsies we do at any age, we can't determine why the person has died. And if you can't tell why a person has died, the best thing to do is to say, I don't know, because if you call it abuse and it's not, somebody may lose their freedom. It's a very serious problem.
(Dr. Case, speaking at a lecture); The child was autopsied, and there were no findings, other than a very significantly swollen brain. There was no blood in the head.
Malarek: Dr. Case feels so strongly about her findings in this matter that she recently raised it during a lecture in Washington.
Case: (Lecturing): Now, he has made another statement and that was, Well, if it's not head injury, it was asphyxiation by strangulation, but one of those things happened. I consider this in the area of irresponsible testimony.
Malarek (to Dr. Case); Dr. Smith said that in the absence of a credible explanation, the post-mortem findings are regarded as resulting from non-accidental injury. What's he saying here?
Case: I'm not sure exactly what he is saying, other than this is a child that you don't expect to die. It's a child that has no reason that we can find to be dead, and, in his opinion, lacking that, then somebody must have killed that child. But that is , in my opinion, that's not always true. There are children of this age that die that we never know why they have died.
Malarek: Ultimately, it took three experienced pathologists to finally knock down Dr. Smith's opinion of how Nicholas died. On March 24th of this year, after receiving Dr. Case's report, the Children's Aid Society informed Lianne by letter that they were returning her baby and removing her name from the Child Abuse Registry. They expressed their sympathies, but no one has ever offered an apology. So finally, after four torturous years, Lianne's ordeal was over. Today, it's her parents she feels sorry for.
Lianne: My parents supported me through and through, and although they supported me financially and emotionally, financially it killed them. My father's retired, my mother's soon to retire, and they spent their retirement fund.
Maurice: And what really gets me is that they're using the full resources of government to do it to you, which is essentially my tax dollars to really make my life miserable.
Malarek: And then you have to use your savings ... your retirement savings...
Maurice: Then I've got to use my retirement savings to defend against the full forces of the government. I feel sorry for the poor single mother, the young single mother that has no resources, no emotional resources, no support, no financial resources - they're railroaded. They're gone.
Malarek: Deputy Chief Coroner, Dr. James Cairns;
(To Dr. Cairns): You've got one very angry father. He spent well over $100,000 to defend his daughter and to make sure that his daughter would get the new baby back.
Cairns: I think his concerns have been dealt with in the manner in which they could only be dealt with given the mandate of investigating deaths.
Malarek: In his autopsy report on Nicholas' death,Dr. Smith concluded "in the absence of a credible explanation, in my opinion the post-mortem findings are regarded as resulting from non-accidental injury."
(To Dr. Cairns) What do you think of Dr. Smith taking that position?
Cairns: He took that position after he reviewed all the material. We are all aware that, unfortunately, children die as a result of abuse - and I'm talking in general now - and that when we have no explanation for it, we have to consider the possibility that foul play is involved.
Malarek: But you don't charge into the fray holding that assumption, because it would colour the way you would investigate.
Cairns: I don't think it would colour your investigation. I think it will make it a thorough investigation.
Malarek: We wanted to ask Dr. Smith about specific cases, but despite repeated requests for an interview, he was unavailable for this program";
See previous postings related to Nicholas' case:
Nicholas' Case: Questions going to the heart of Dr. Charles Smith's credibility; October, 2007;
Nicholas' Case: Smith accused of "uncivilized conduct" for bringing 11-year-old son to exhumation of 11-month-old baby boy."
Smith and the media: Part Four; Fifth Estate probe triggers plea to Premier Mike Harris for inquiry into Smith cases; Deaf ears; November, 2007;
Goudge Inquiry: Thinking Dirty; Dr. Cairns defends the indefensible; November, 2007;
Interrogation of an innocent woman series: January, 2008;
Next posting: "Diagnosis: Murder"; Last installment; There were others.
Harold Levy; hlevy15@gmail.com...
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