STORY: "Baby death childminder has sentence cut," published by the Daily Mail on November 3, 2015.
GIST: Former prostitute Helen Stacey today had her murder conviction for shaking a six-month-old boy to death quashed. The Court of Appeal substituted a conviction for manslaughter and reduced her life sentence to seven years, meaning the registered childminder will serve around another year in jail. Stacey, 44, who denied murder, was convicted by a jury at Norwich Crown Court in 1998 which was told that Joseph Mackin was shaken by Stacey in a fit of temper and died from a serious brain injury. Joseph's parents, Anthony and Corinne Mackin, of North Walsham, Norfolk, dropped off their son at the home of 44-year-old Stacey, who had convictions for soliciting and shoplifting, at 7am. He was found "floppy like a rag doll" at 5.15pm and died the same day in 1997.
Lord Justice Kennedy, giving his ruling today after the appeal hearing last week, said the conviction for killing was "quite safe" on the evidence but he was concerned whether the jury was entitled to find that Stacey had intended to do really serious harm to the child.........Lord Justice Kennedy, sitting with Mr Justice Potts and Mrs Justice Hallett, added: "Even allowing for the jury's obvious advantage in seeing the appellant give evidence, we have been unable to discern anything which in our judgment would have made it safe for the jury to convict this appellant of the more serious charge." He said the less serious charge of manslaughter was the only safe verdict. "If the jury had had the advantage of hearing additional medical evidence that we have heard, they might have come to the same conclusion," he said. The evidence came from Dr Waney Squier, a consultant neuropathologist, who told the appeal judges that since the trial new research had changed the concept of how these injuries could occur and the amount of violence needed. She said she was also concerned that the length of time between the injury occurring and the onset of serious symptoms could be as long as 24 hours."
The entire story can be found at:
