Smith The Avenger: Witness Statements ;

"DR. SMITH TOOK A PERSONAL INTEREST IN ENSURING THAT PEOPLE WERE PUNISHED FOR HARMING CHILDREN;"

DR. MARTIN QUEEN IN WITNESS STATEMENT PROVIDED TO GOUDGE INQUIRY;

A medical resident who had "limited exposure" to Dr. Charles Smith when he did a three-month rotation at the Hospital For Sick Children in basic anatomical pathology from October to December, 1990, had the impression that "Dr. Smith took a personal interest in ensuring that people were punished for harming children."

Dr. Martin Queen's impression of Smith is set out in a witness statement provided to Goudge Inquiry staff which was entered into evidence and has been posted on the Goudge Inquiry's Web-site. (www.goudgeinquiry.ca);

(The "witness statement" is actually the summary of an interview with Dr. Queen which was conducted by Inquiry staff);

Queen's statement is of limited evidentiary value because it has not been subjected to the courtroom tools of examination and cross-examination.

However, it corresponds with the impressions of a Hamilton Spectator reporter who interviewed Smith in connection with a series of articles a trip Smith made to India in 1997.

He had been retained to help Hamilton, Ontario Police Service homicide officers locate and exhume the bodies of two infant twins children believed to have been murdered by their father.

“Cops and forensic pathologists agree that autopsies may not be pleasant but they are part of the job," reporter Jon Wells wrote.

"Yet for both, child autopsies are a different matter, often too hard for the heart and the soul.

But child autopsies were what Charles Smith did for a living.

As a pediatric forensic pathologist he specialized in the deaths of those who get to barely experience life.

On the emotional level, he felt the pain, the loss.

If the child had a favorite teddy bear, Smith would place it gently next to the corpse as he performed the autopsy.

In a field where clinical. Scientific detachment is required, Smith was a believing, practicing Christian.

When it comes to death almost everyone returns to their religious roots for comfort.

Smith did so all the time."

God, he believed, is a god of justice, and every wrong will be righted. As he opened the bodies of children, that thought helped."

My former Toronto Star colleague Catherine Porter raised the issue as to whether Dr. Smith was more interested in punishing abusers than in finding the truth, or the victim of a complicated field, in a story published on November 13, 1995;

Catherine began her story with a quote by Dr. Paul C.H. Brouardel, Chair of Forensic Medicine at the Sorbonne, who wrote in 1897:

"If the law has made you a witness, remain a man of science. You have no victim to avenge, no guilty or innocent person to convict or save - you must bear testimony within the limits of science."

She juxtaposed this quote with the following one:

"I've got a thing against people who hurt children.

Dr. Charles Smith, forensic pathologist, expert witness,
(2005) (To Toronto Star reporter Dale Brazao);

Porter also included Smith's quote to Brazao that, "I am passionate about my work...
"There is nothing more heart-wrenching than a mother with empty arms seeking answers as to why her baby died."

Smith stunned the inquiry with his admission that he believed for many years that his role was to help the prosecution win its case.

Dr. Queen's impressions, backed up by Dr. Smith's comments to journalists, go one step further;

They suggest that he also saw his role as reaping vengeance against those who harm children - and that he was more crusader than scientist.

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;