Wednesday, January 7, 2009
KERAN HENDERSON CASE; PART ONE; KERAN HENDERSON TRAVESTY TURNS SPOTLIGHT ON BRITAIN'S AILING CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM;
Now that Suzanne Holdsworth has been freed from her horrific ordeal at the hands of Britain's criminal justice system, the spotlight must inevitably turn on the Keran Henderson case.
Those who followed Ms. Holdsworth's retrial must still be shaking their heads at the utterly certain and convincing evidence provided by the Crown's experts initial trial - which has now been proven so blatantly wrong;
BBC reporter John Sweeney has been battling for years against the blind spot in Britain's justice system which has caused it to intensively prosecute so many innocent, grieving parents and caregivers, who deserved sympathy instead of condemnation, prosecution and imprisonment;
Yet, as Sweeney observes in his BBC blog, the system has not learned the all too clear lessons: Ms. Henderson remains in jail awaiting her appeal;
"Closer to home, injustice still creates great pain for pernicious and unnecessary reasons," says in his blog, which can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/panorama/johnsweeney/index.html;
"Last spring I did a Panorama which questioned the safety of the conviction against Keran Henderson now in jail for manslaughter for killing little Maeve Sheppard, a child she was baby-minding," he continues;
Keran, hitherto a pillar of the community in Buckinghamshire, denies she harmed the child.
The only evidence against Keran was 'shaken baby syndrome' - a massively controversial scientific doctrine which some sceptical doctors and most bio-mechanics say doesn't make sense. Britain's child protection establishment, however, believes that Shaken Baby Syndrome is valid.
Keran is still in prison, but her appeal will be heard sometime in the New Year.
Meanwhile, don't tell the Panorama editor but I did a bit of moonlighting the other day for Newsnight, reporting on the long agony of Suzanne Holdsworth.
She spent three years inside for murder for a crime that didn't happen.
There are grave questions about the thoroughness and fairness of the investigation by Cleveland Police, but they've announced that they won't be apologising to Suzanne.
Her partner, Lee Spencer, is not impressed by a police investigation that failed to take statements from two surgeons who were going to operate on the brain of the boy she was wrongly accused of murdering.
Suzanne Holdsworth is the eighth person wrongly convicted of murder or manslaughter I have helped clear the name of or free since joining the BBC in 2001, starting with Sally Clark, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony, Lorraine Harris, Ray Rock, Angela and Ian."
In the view of this Blog - the Charles Smith Blog - Ms. Henderson's name cannot be added to the list soon enough...
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;