"She says she would love to see Dr. Smith charged with criminal offences for what his testimony did to her family and others who testified at the Inquiry in September 2008.
"We were accountable for what we didn't do. Why isn't he accountable for the things he did and knowingly did?" she wants to know.
"He should have used common sense. Common sense would have said that Jenna couldn't have survived 24 hours with the injuries she had.""
PETERBOROUGH THIS WEEK;
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PUBLISHER'S VIEW; Brenda Waudby is an extraordinary woman. She has fought back against the injustice done to her and her family on behalf of the people of Ontario with dignity. There are still some extremely serious loose ends. For one: Ms. Waudby had to agree to plead guilty to a Family Court offence based on an opinion by - you guessed it: the former Dr. Charles Randal Smith - if she wanted prosecutor's to withdraw the murder charge which they acknowledged was wrongful. She was forced to plead guilty to an offence she utterly denied - based which was based on what we know to be a flawed, disgraced, dishonest, incompetent, malicious pathologist's opinion, if she wanted to be cleared of a wrongful murder prosecution. How just is that? She has gone to court to vacate that finding of guilt. The sooner it is overturned the better.
HAROLD LEVY; PUBLISHER; THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG;
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"(PETERBOROUGH) More than 14 years after being charged with killing her young daughter, Brenda Waudby is packing up her belongings to move into a house courtesy of the officials who falsely accused her in the first place," the Peterborough This Week story published earlier today begins, under the heading, "Brenda Waudby packs up and plans for a fresh start: Payout from lawsuit and Goudge Inquiry finance her new home 14 years after her daughter was murdered by her babysitter," begins.
"She has just settled a long-standing lawsuit with Peterborough police and cashed a cheque from the Province in February as part of her compensation through the Goudge Inquiry into cases influenced by pathologist Charles Smith. A confidentiality agreement means those numbers will never be made public," the story continues.
"However, the dollars will help Ms Waudby, her two children and two dogs move from a downtown apartment to a house she can call her own.
"This chapter in my life is slowly closing and a new chapter is beginning," says Ms Waudby, 46. "One-third of my life dealt with Jenna's death and realistically that should have been dealt with years ago."
Along the way, she will ditch the boxes of legal files that trace the trail from the initial days of Jenna Mellor's death to Ms Waudby's exoneration. In 2006, Jenna's babysitter was convicted of beating her out of frustration of being told to stay in and take care of her. He served 22 months as a young offender and has since been released.
The initial criminal investigation in 1997 led to an amended civil lawsuit filed by Ms Waudby in 2004 against police investigator Dan Lemay and the police force for $4.5 million and Dr. Smith for $4 million. Without a record of the settlement, it is unclear which of those party were ultimately sued and how many of them paid into the settlement.
Ms Waudby and her daughter Justine, now 18, also testified against Dr. Smith at the Goudge Inquiry.
Neither Ms Waudby, Justine nor their lawyer Michael Jordan would disclose how much money was awarded. The court file contains no record of settlement, although Mr. Jordan says a dismissal order should be at the courthouse soon.
"The terms of settlement are not public," he says. "Neither the defendant or the plaintiff can comment."
The payment from the Inquiry was reached first and then that amount was deducted from the lawsuit amount, Mr. Jordan added, citing it as how the government compensation system works.
Ms Waudby doesn't regret any steps taken in the process to get her children back into her custody or to clear her name. She only regrets leaving her 21-month-old daughter to go out on that January night in 1997.
She says she would love to see Dr. Smith charged with criminal offences for what his testimony did to her family and others who testified at the Inquiry in September 2008.
"We were accountable for what we didn't do. Why isn't he accountable for the things he did and knowingly did?" she wants to know.
"He should have used common sense. Common sense would have said that Jenna couldn't have survived 24 hours with the injuries she had."
Only two steps remain in the process: overturning a child-abuse conviction against Ms Waudby from a plea agreement in June 1999 and burying Jenna's ribcage with the rest of her body in Little Lake Cemetery.
The government will pay for that too."
THE story can be found at:
http://www.mykawartha.com/community/community/article/1047041
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=120008354894645705&postID=8369513443994476774
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
