"He (Rob McGall) explained that a student in the class at Prince Edward Collegiate Institute in Picton has a family connection to Smith. And while some officials in the school were aware of Smith’s controversial background, others were not, nor was the school board, McGall said.
“It appears to have been a school-based decision but we are working through that because we are interested in knowing how the various conversations occurred that led to him being approved to speak to the class,” he said.
McGall said that each school in the board currently has its own protocol for inviting guest presenters and at Prince Edward Collegiate, senior school officials are supposed to approve any speakers.
HEALTH REPORTER THERESA BOYLE: THE TORONTO STAR;
----------------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND: The Goudge inquiry focused largely on the flawed work of Charles Smith — formerly the province's chief pediatric pathologist and a self-styled member of the prosecution team — whose "errors" led to innocent people being branded as child murderers. (He has since been thrown out of the medical profession in Ontario); Justice Stephen Goudge's 1000-page report slammed Smith, along with Ontario's former chief coroner and his deputy, for their roles in wrongful prosecutions and asked the province to consider compensation. The provincial coroner's office found evidence of errors in 20 of 45 autopsies Smith did over a 10-year period starting in the early 1990s. Thirteen resulted in criminal charges. The inquiry heard that Smith's failings included hanging on to crucial evidence (instead of processing it), "losing" evidence which showed his opinion was wrong and may have helped show that the accused person was innocent, mistating evidence, chronic tardiness, and the catastrophic misinterpretation of findings. The cases, along with other heart-rending stories of wrongful prosecutions based in part on Smith's testimony, also raised a host of issues about the pediatric pathology system in Ontario and the use of expert evidence in the criminal courts.
------------------------------------------------------------PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is pure Charles Smith - conning someone to have him invited to address a class of high school. He, the unrepentant former Dr. Charles Randal Smith, who is probably responsible for more miscarriages of justice and destroying the lives of more individuals and families than any other individual in Canadian history. It's just like his conning of a friend to have him hired by a hospital in Saskatoon after he had come under investigation in Ontario and had slunk away quietly from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He, the disgraced physician recently declared incompetent and found guilty of acts of professional misconduct who didn't even have the courage to show up for his discipline hearing. The former Dr. Charles Randal Smith - a great role model for our students who, having admitted to little more than "errors" and "mistakes," has clearly begun a campaign to rehabilitate himself in the forgetful public's eye. My gut feeling is that Smith has become emboldened by the fact that he has evaded prosecution for his crimes - and by the fact that not a single radio, television or print story marked September 20, 2011 - the 3d anniversary of Justice Stephen Goudge's damning report into many of his cases. It's worth noting that at the Goudge Inquiry, contrary to the myth Smith had constructed that he was a God of forensic pathology, he purported to be an ignoramus who had no understanding of medical matters. And now, according to the Toronto Sun, he's lecturing high school students on DNA! (Perhaps he regaled the students with stories, such as the occasion in 1997 when he brought his then 11-year-old son to the exhumation of an 11-month-old child in Sudbury, Ontario, who had died suddenly about nineteen months earlier after bumping his head while playing under a table.) This Leopard truly has not changed his spots. He's mocking us. Final thought: A message to Ontario's school boards. Get something positive out of this unfortunate experience. Ask people like Sherry (Sherret) Robinson, Brenda Waudby, Bill Mullins-Johnson, and all too many others, to come and talk about their experiences in Ontario's criminal justice system. (Not Charles Smith); Why not go one step further, and set up courses on the frailties of Ontario's criminal justice system that allowed Smith to destroy lives and families with impunity for so long?
----------------------------------------------------------
"Rob McGall, director of education for the Hastings and Prince Edward School Board, said Tuesday that he regrets that Smith appeared as a guest speaker before approximately 30 Grade 11 students in a law class Friday," the story continues.
"“From a director’s perspective, this is not what we would hope for in terms of the approach to something as complicated as this particular speaker,” he said.
“This would not be a presenter that we would readily endorse. If we were dealing with a challenging topic like this, we would be looking for more of a balanced approach. So from that aspect it certainly is disappointing,” he added.
He explained that a student in the class at Prince Edward Collegiate Institute in Picton has a family connection to Smith. And while some officials in the school were aware of Smith’s controversial background, others were not, nor was the school board, McGall said.
“It appears to have been a school-based decision but we are working through that because we are interested in knowing how the various conversations occurred that led to him being approved to speak to the class,” he said.
McGall said that each school in the board currently has its own protocol for inviting guest presenters and at Prince Edward Collegiate, senior school officials are supposed to approve any speakers.
“The practice is for others to have a look at the application to have a presenter to come in and sign off on it and we are looking at right now to see if that process was followed,” he said.
McGall said it is too early to know whether anyone would be disciplined or an apology issued to students and parents.
“We are not there yet. At this early stage the best I can say is that as a district we are looking at our practices, we are looking at whether there needs to be a central approach to this kind of decision making. We know that in this case the board officials were not aware and that is probably a change that has to occur,” he said.
Smith made mistakes in 20 death investigations in which people were criminally charged, convicted or otherwise implicated in the deaths of children."
The story can be found at:
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 found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
