Up-Date: Alarm Bells; Part Two; Chief Coroner's Office Aware As Early As 1996 That Smith Fouled Up Criminal Case By Mixing Up DNA Analysis;

One of the most troubling questions plaguing the Goudge Inquiry is why the Chief Coroner's Office failed to rein in Dr. Charles Smith in spite of several loudly resounding alarm bells.

A first alarm bell: 1990:

One of the first of these warnings the Julie Bowers case - widely reported in 1990 - in which Smith repeatedly revised his opinion as to the time of death.

An American pathologist retained by the defence later told a reporter: "I've never had an experience like this,"..."I drew a conclusion that [police and prosecutors] had a serious problem on their hands."

Dr. Janet Ophoven told the reporter that when she was first called to review Smith's post-mortem report and other forensic evidence she could not get important forensic samples from Smith (who has acknowledged at the Inquiry that he believed his role was to help the prosecution win the case);(

"He withheld, in my opinion, all the materials that I needed," Ophoven said, noting that she was shocked when the critical tissue slides were finally produced. "They were from somebody else." (See earlier posting: The Julie Bowers Case; The very first alarm bells; A precursor of things to come;)

A second alarm bell; 1991:

This Blog has devoted several postings to a second alarm bell which resounded loudly in 1993: Judge Patrick Dunn's scathing criticism of Dr. Smith and the Hospital for Sick Children's Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) team.

See earlier postings: "Lawyers warned "to guard" against Dr. Charles Smith's testimony back in 1993; Nov. 9, 2007);" and "Dr. Smith's "mistakes" in the Timmins case: Independent reviewers for College found a litany of errors: Nov. 11, 2007);)

A third alarm bell: As early as 1996:

Another alarm bell - dating back to as early as 1996 emerged during lawyer Peter Wardle's cross-examination of Justice John McMahon.

Wardle represents six-families and care-givers who were effected by Dr. Smith's opinions.

McMahon is a former crown law officer who, at one point, was asked to canvas crown attornies across the province as to any prosecutions involving Dr. Smith.

This alarm bell relates to Deputy Chief Coroner Dr. James Cairns awareness of Dr. Smith's deficiencies.

As the transcript indicates:

Mr Peter Wardle: And I'm really just highlighting this for you, sir, because we've heard a lot of evidence about what the Coroner's Office knew or didn't know about
issues relating to Dr. Smith's competence in the -- in the late 1990's.

And -- and this would certainly suggest that Dr. Cairns, at least, was aware of one (1) incident involving a mixing up of a sample, which appears to have had some impact on an ongoing criminal prosecution, is that fair?

MR. JUSTICE JOHN MCMAHON: Absolutely, it would be fair based on that -- what Ms. Quinlan's recollection is.

The mistake Dr. Smith made in this 1994 case was fatal to the prosecution;

As Reporter Kirk Makin noted in his story in the Globe and Mail on July 2, 2007, "The mountain of mistakes made by Charles Smith during his 20-year career as Ontario's top forensic pathologist grew higher yesterday, as the Goudge Inquiry learned that a 1994 incest case was derailed because Dr. Smith mixed up DNA samples".

The facts of this case are complex - so rather than summarizing them I will let them flow directly from McMahon's evidence to the inquiry:

MR. PETER WARDLE: So I wanted to just take you through the body of this email, if we may.

The email indicates that Ms. Quinlan had prosecuted Roy Simmons (phonetic) on a charge of manslaughter in which Dr. Charles Smith was a witness.

The prosecution began in 1994, and I believe -- and she says in the email:

"I believe in 1997 or early 1998, we were advised that Dr. Smith had mixed up samples from the post-mortem that were subsequently used in DNA testing."

And then it goes on to say:

"To give you some background, Simmons was charged in 1994 with killing his 3-month-old grandson.

It was believed that he was also the father of the baby.

DNA tests were done to confirm this; however, the tests [and I'm assuming that's the initial tests] show that not only was Simmons not the father of the baby, he was not the grandfather of the baby or the father of the child -- baby's mother.

Although the maternal grandmother was adamant that Simmons was the father of the baby's mother, we were assured by CS -- CFS of the accuracy of the results of the test."

And then you'll see it goes on to say: "Simmons was convicted of manslaughter in October 1995.

The Ontario Court of Appeal ordered a retrial on an unrelated issue.

Before the retrial, the baby's mother advised the police that the information she had given to them about the paternity of the baby was false.

She confirmed that Simmons was the father of the baby.

DNA testing was redone using a sample from the mother and another sample from the
baby.

These second tests confirmed that Simmons was the father and grandfather of the baby, and of course, the father of the baby's mother."

And it's really the last paragraph I wanted to direct you to: "An investigation was undertaken regarding the mixing up of the original sample.

A meeting was held with Dr. Jim Cairns, Dr. Smith, CFS personnel, the investigating officer, Detective Constable Dave Fawcette, Detective Inspector Ken Smith, and myself."

And -- and just stopping there. It would appear from the chronology that this would be -- it doesn't say when this meeting took place, but I'm assuming from what's in this email, that it must have been somewhere between 1996 and 1998.

MR. JUSTICE JOHN MCMAHON: It would make sense.

MR. PETER WARDLE: And then it says: "Dr. Charles Smith explained at that meeting that he had mislabeled the original sample from the baby taken at the post-mortem and had taken the wrong sample to CFS for DNA testing.

This resulted in the initial incorrect result as to the paternity of the baby."

And then it goes on to say: "Simmons was convicted in 1999. After the retrial on the charge of manslaughter, he pleaded guilty to incest."

In spite of this serious error which derailed a prosecution, the Chief Coroner's Office allowed Dr. Smith to continue performing forensic autopsies on children for a further five years - and prosecutors kept calling on him to testify as their expert witness against accused parents and caregivers in court.

Dr. Cairns was not questioned about this meeting during his testimony at the Inquiry;

Blogster's query: This "mix-up" indicated Dr. Smith had problems keeping track of forensic evidence.

Why didn't the Chief Coroner's Office and the Hospital for Sick Children crack down on the cluttered state of his office and his lack of proper systems for the labelling, storing, and preserving of exhibits, at that time?

Harold Levy; hlevy15@gmail.com;