AFTERMATH: PART SEVEN; CRITICAL COMMENT; GLOBE AND MAIL EDITORIAL;

THOUGH DR. YOUNG WAS AWARE OF HOW DR. SMITH HAD HANDLED THE PUBIC HAIR AND KNEW, ACCORDING TO JUDGE GOUDGE, THAT IT "MIGHT GIVE RISE TO FINDINGS OF BAD FAITH OR OBSTRUCTION," HE WROTE TO THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS OF ONTARIO, THE SELF-REGULATORY BODY FOR THE MEDICAL PROFESSION, TO SAY DR. SMITH HAD ACTED IN GOOD FAITH.

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The Globe and Mail editorial ran Thursday under the heading, "More than just mistakes."

"Mr. Justice Stephen Goudge had no mandate to assign criminal responsibility in his inquiry into the renegade scientist in the Ontario coroner's office who destroyed the lives of parents and children in his crusade against child abuse," the editorial began.

"But based on some disturbing findings in Judge Goudge's 1,000-page report, it's reasonable to ask if an investigation is warranted into possible obstruction of justice charges against the scientist, Dr. Charles Smith, and at least one of the men who supervised him, Dr. James Cairns, then and now the province's Deputy Chief Coroner," it continued.

"The coroner's office would like the public to believe it acted in good faith during the 13 years in which Dr. Smith was its top forensic pathologist investigating children's deaths.

He made mistakes, yes - at least 12 people were wrongly convicted and went to jail, another eight were wrongly accused, children were taken away permanently from their parents and adopted by others - but they were mistakes made in good conscience and in trying to protect children from abuse.

The findings of Judge Goudge, who sits on Ontario's Court of Appeal, make one wonder.

Dr. Smith was instrumental in a case in which a Peterborough mother was accused of killing her 20-month-old daughter, Jenna, despite evidence pointing toward a male babysitter, including a pubic hair found on the dead girl.

At the preliminary inquiry, Dr. Smith denied knowing about the pubic hair, even though he had it in an envelope in his shirt pocket. (The babysitter was later found guilty.)

"Dr. Smith was adamant that his failings were never intentional," writes Judge Goudge. "I simply cannot accept such a sweeping attempt to escape moral responsibility."

But Dr. Smith should in no way bear all the blame for the earthquake that followed behind him.

There were two people responsible for supervising him.

While Judge Goudge describes at length how "systemic" problems with oversight in the coroner's office could be fixed, the system will probably never be better than the people in charge.

They were, at the very least, willfully blind.

Dr. James Young, then the chief coroner and today a senior federal official in charge of emergency management, said he did not read much about a judge's damning 1991 ruling that enumerated Dr. Smith's flaws until he was called to testify before Judge Goudge.

But Judge Goudge also suggests a more direct attempt to mislead other authorities.

Though Dr. Young was aware of how Dr. Smith had handled the pubic hair and knew, according to Judge Goudge, that it "might give rise to findings of bad faith or obstruction," he wrote to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the self-regulatory body for the medical profession, to say Dr. Smith had acted in good faith.

This statement, which Dr. Young admitted he knew was false, did not affect a court case, and so would not be cause for an investigation into obstructing justice.

Dr. Cairns, though, in a case in which Marco Trotta of Oshawa was convicted of killing his eight-month-old son, Paolo, and his wife Anisa was convicted of criminal negligence causing death, "made three incorrect representations to Crown counsel," Judge Goudge wrote.

"First, he said that Dr. Smith's work in approximately 20 cases had been reviewed.

Second, he said there was no suggestion from these reviews that Dr. Smith was incompetent or negligent in these cases.

Third, he said that, following the review, Dr. Smith was returned to the autopsy roster in June, 2001 and that, as far as the OCCO [Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario] was concerned, Dr. Smith was competent to conduct any autopsy.

None of Dr. Cairns's three statements was correct.

And he did nothing to correct the misunderstandings when the Crown put them in writing, at a time when the case was headed to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

That court upheld Mr. Trotta's conviction in 2004, and he was behind bars until the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new trial last year.

The coroner's office had enormous power to do harm precisely because of the public's deep trust in medical science.

In courts of law, where skepticism is normally the rule, its word was close to unassailable.

It abused that trust, and the harm it wrought - a man jailed for 12 years for sodomizing and killing his four-year-old niece, who was neither raped nor murdered - is unfathomable.

Coming to grips with these terrible wrongs means not just fixing the system for next time, but holding the people in charge responsible for their actions."

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;