PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects are to widely used interrogation methods such as the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ I found it utterly unthinkable that police used their draconian techniques to obtain a statement from a 22-year old mentally impaired youth who still slept with his soft toys - and that they dared to ask Dylann O'Meara to speak to an imaginary person about his baby’s death, which, as Justice Jenkins held was like “asking a paranoid schizophrenic to induce a psychosis to discover what had happened on a particular occasion." I also wondered why the authorities did not do more to explore the possibility that Shisui's death could be attributed to SIDS and possible explanations for injuries detected in Shisui's body. Looks to me like a very disturbing prosecution.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog:
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The case against him collapsed in January after prosecutors dropped a manslaughter charge in the wake of a police interview being ruled inadmissible. It made headlines because detectives had encouraged Dylan to talk to his imaginary friend to find out what had happened to Shisui. Justice Lindy Jenkins described the interview as an unfair and misguided attempt by police to “elicit a confession from an imaginary person”. “Not only were the police speculating (about the cause of Shisui’s death) but they were inviting the accused, a psychologically vulnerable young man who was more prone to suggestion and acquiescence than the average person, to speculate,” she said. Dylan’s grandparents are scathing of the tactics employed by detectives against Dylan, who has autism spectrum disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, anxiety and depression. He also has a history of self-harm and suffers seizures during periods of heightened stress. Maternal grandmother Peggy O’Meara, 67, and partner Aidan Kenny, 70, complain police seemed to have “tunnel-vision” in their pursuit of him.There was no acknowledgement of his deep pain and grief, they felt. “While (Shisui’s mum) was treated like a grieving mother, we believe Dylan was treated like a guilty person,” Ms O’Meara said from the family’s Rockingham home. “We feel he was targeted from the beginning,” she said. “I suppose from his appearance and the way he was living they decided he was Rockingham scum or something like that. The couple are waiting on senior police to complete an internal review of the police investigation. They’ve had unshakeable faith in Dylan’s innocence from the day he was arrested in April 2016, a few days after seven-month-old Shisui was found lifeless in his cot."
SECOND PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Second police interview: Vicious: Dylan was charged with causing grievous bodily harm immediately after the second interview. The charges were later upgraded to manslaughter. Police opposed bail and Dylan was taken to Hakea before being transferred to Graylands Hospital and then back to Hakea. He eventually got bail and was able to return to his grandparents’ care, but there were tight conditions. He couldn’t see his two younger siblings because they were children. Mr Kenny said the police appeared to pay no attention to anything they’d told them. “They just went with their angle, and pushed and pushed and pushed until, as Dylan says, they broke him,” he said. Dylan said the worst part of the experience was “feeling trapped”. “I couldn’t leave the room. I couldn’t do anything to make it stop,” he said. Ms O’Meara said Dylan wasn’t assertive enough to say “stop”. She described the second interview as “vicious”. “The (police) wouldn’t talk to us and they didn’t keep us informed. The family liaison officer was supposed to be contactable but she did not answer her phone,” she said. Mr Kenny said he believed it was “totally wrong” for the detectives to speak to Dylan at length off camera. “I don’t think they had any right to do that. And he wasn’t healthy or well enough to be able to answer them or talk to them,” he said. “Because we had such faith in him, we absolutely knew that he wasn’t capable of being involved in any way with the baby’s death. We just know Dylan too well.” His submissive personality made him more vulnerable to leading questions. “They suggested to him repeatedly that he smothered the baby by shoving a blanket in his mouth,” Mr Kenny said. “Yet they had the coroner’s report at that time, so they should have known that wasn’t true, but they still suggested it.” The autopsy found “no obvious signs of suffocation” In her defence submission Ms Fordham made the same point. “Police represented to (Dylan) that they had established that the blanket in Shisui’s mouth had contributed to his death,” she submitted. “They had no such knowledge and in fact knew that there were no signs of suffocation.”
THIRD PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The spectre of sudden infant death syndrome, which had claimed the life of one of Dylan’s younger brothers, remains a possible explanation for the tragedy. Though it doesn’t explain the baby’s arm fractures. According to two witness statements Shisui fell to the floor from a chair positioned on a bed, just a few days before his death. He was “screaming in pain”, one witness said. Dylan’s grandparents want police to look closer at the statements supplied by other witnesses. “There were a few odd things happening around the time (of Shisui’s death). In the witness statements, some of the witnesses were clearly lying. There were allegations about a drug party (elsewhere) that night,” Ms O’Meara said. “The police didn't appear to investigate those statements to the same degree that they investigated and interrogated Dylan,” Mr Kenny added."
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STORY: "Dylan O'Meara opens up about being accused of baby son's death," by reporter John Flint, published by The West Australian on March 20, 2019.
GIST: "Dylan O’Meara “wouldn’t tread on an ant” let alone hurt his baby son, insist the grandparents who raised him from the age of one. The mentally impaired 22-year-old is childlike in his mannerisms and boyish enthusiasm for stick insects. He still sleeps with his soft toys. But not that long ago, he was banged up in Hakea Prison, charged with killing his infant son, Shisui. The case against him collapsed in January after prosecutors dropped a manslaughter charge in the wake of a police interview being ruled inadmissible. It made headlines because detectives had encouraged Dylan to talk to his imaginary friend to find out what had happened to Shisui. Justice Lindy Jenkins described the interview as an unfair and misguided attempt by police to “elicit a confession from an imaginary person”. “Not only were the police speculating (about the cause of Shisui’s death) but they were inviting the accused, a psychologically vulnerable young man who was more prone to suggestion and acquiescence than the average person, to speculate,” she said. Dylan’s grandparents are scathing of the tactics employed by detectives against Dylan, who has autism spectrum disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, anxiety and depression. He also has a history of self-harm and suffers seizures during periods of heightened stress. Maternal grandmother Peggy O’Meara, 67, and partner Aidan Kenny, 70, complain police seemed to have “tunnel-vision” in their pursuit of him.
There
was no acknowledgement of his deep pain and grief, they felt. “While
(Shisui’s mum) was treated like a grieving mother, we believe Dylan was
treated like a guilty person,” Ms O’Meara said from the family’s
Rockingham home. “We feel he was targeted from
the beginning,” she said. “I suppose from his appearance and the way he
was living they decided he was Rockingham scum or something like that.
The couple are waiting on senior police to complete an internal review
of the police investigation. They’ve
had unshakeable faith in Dylan’s innocence from the day he was arrested
in April 2016, a few days after seven-month-old Shisui was found
lifeless in his cot. A ‘gentle’ dad Three
years ago, Dylan with his partner CJ Laidlaw and little Shisui lived in
a converted games room at the back of a shared house in Keppell Mews,
Rockingham. Six other young people lived at the residence, which
according to a neighbour, saw lots of human traffic. The bedroom door
had no lock. Inside, Shisui, named after a Japanese anime character,
slept in a portacot near the couple’s bed. Dylan, then 19, had left his
grandparents’ home to live with CJ during the pregnancy. He dropped out
of Peel TAFE, where he was studying cookery, to take care of her. He had
met his first girlfriend, two years younger than him, at army cadets.
Dylan
was thrilled to bits when Shisui was born. In the next few months he
was the happiest his grandparents had seen him. They described him as an
attentive, adoring father. “He was very content to just look after the
baby all the time,” Ms O’Meara said. “Dylan
tended to the baby’s needs the most. I think it was acknowledged by
everybody that’s how it was. He was doing feeds, changing, washing all
of that. “I asked him why and he said it was
because CJ had post-natal depression. I was very proud of him. I had no
worries about that child’s safety at all. “I
just know that Dylan was very particular about how he lifted the baby
and how he handled him. He was very gentle. He always used two hands,
always supported him. He was a bit OCD about making sure his blankets
were right.” She said he’s the same with animals.
“Reptiles, insects, plants, anything living,” she said. “There
were lots of incidents when he was a kid. One time he got so upset that
somebody killed a fly in the classroom I had to go pick him up from
school.” “When he was five or six he was in
junior soccer and he stopped running with the other kids after the ball
because there was an insect on the ground and he stopped to take it to
safety.” “All of those things. That's how I know he did not do anything.” Harrowing time for family: Next Monday will be the third anniversary of Shisui’s death. An autopsy failed to ascertain any cause of death.
It
revealed he’d been a well fed, healthy baby up to his death, bar a
couple of serious findings — Shisui’s left arm was fractured and he had a
healed rib fracture. According to the police,
in the early hours of April 8, 2016, Dylan felt his way through the
darkness to the portacot and began making a semi-prepared bottle of
formula. It was alleged he took hold of Shisui’s left forearm and lifted
him out over the side rails of the cot. The
force was such that it broke the baby’s forearm bone and caused a
further two fractures to the wrist and elbow joints of the same arm. It
was claimed Dylan attempted to settle and soothe the infant in his arms
for 10 to 15 minutes without success. He then allegedly placed a
bunched portion of blanket into his son’s mouth in an attempt to settle
his crying and provide something for him to bite down on. According
to police, Shisui stopped crying after about 20 minutes. At this point
Dylan allegedly noticed the blanket was covering his son’s head. He then
the moved it away from both the child’s head and mouth, before going to
bed climbing into his bed and falling asleep. When Dylan woke up around
10am, it was alleged he picked Shisui up, but the bub was cold and
appeared lifeless. While
lawyers for Dylan argued the police narrative was entirely speculative
and at odds with autopsy evidence, there’s no dispute about what
happened next. Blind panic erupted and the
young couple waved down a neighbour in his car. In the vehicle Dylan
held Shisui and tried to revive him. When they got to Rockingham
Hospital, their son was pronounced dead. Dylan moved back to his
grandparents’ home with CJ. It was a harrowing time. “Every
morning I would wake up and I would hear Dylan in the next room just
howling, literally howling the house down and then he’d run to the
bathroom and throw up,” Ms O’Meara said. “And
that went on for days. It was terrible. He was waking up and it was just
hitting him again (what had happened) because in his sleep everything
was back to normal and he thought he was going to wake up to the baby
beside him.” He was so distraught, they got a
phone call to say he was out on the road and was going to throw himself
under a car,” his grandmother was told. “By then the police had found
him and sat him down by the side of the road until Aidan got there,” she
said. Dylan didn’t get to attend his son’s
funeral because he was in the Frankland Centre at Graylands Hospital. He
had been moved there from the crisis care unit at Hakea, where he spent
his first week on remand after he was charged by police. Ms
O’Meara said they pleaded to get approval for him to attend the
service. “The excuse was there was no secure transport to take him,” she
said. “He asked to cut a piece of his hair and put it in the baby’s
hand. We did that for him.” Dylan said he was still “extremely gutted”
that he couldn’t attend. ‘Aggressive bullying’ behaviour by police:
Crying
on the floor of the interview room at the Major Crime Squad’s
headquarters in Perth, some nine hours after he was arrested, Dylan was
accused of faking illness. Detective Senior Constable Nathan Carbone
told him: “I’m not buying it” and “stop faking it”. In defence
submissions, his barrister Judith Fordham described the behaviour as
“aggressive bullying”. Dylan’s
first interview, which had been conducted by two other detectives, had
wrapped up at 12.18am on April 22 after he said he was “getting really
dizzy”. During
the interview, which started at 9.40pm, he told the officers he would
not have hurt his son because he loved him more than anything and his
son was the only reason why he felt so happy. The
interview didn’t start until late because he’d been taken to Royal
Perth Hospital for an examination after he’d started convulsing during
the car journey from his grandparents’ house where he’d been arrested at
3.45pm. He’d also stumbled over into prickles after the vehicle pulled
over to the side of the road so he could get some fresh air. At 1am
Dylan was unarrested and taken to a holding area. Justice
Jenkins noted that neither Det. Sen-Const Carbone or the lead
detective, Detective Sergeant Brendan Shanahan, could explain why the
police didn’t call Dylan’s grandparents to discuss his welfare or
request them to take him home. “I suspect the
real reason for keeping the accused at the police station at this very
late hour was to speak to him informally,” she said. Det. Sen-Const
Carbone went on to have an in-depth 90-minute unrecorded conversation
with Dylan. It
was alleged that Dylan had said he didn’t know whether he could trust
his imaginary friend Alex being around his next child and he was worried
about what Alex had done. The detective sent
his colleague a message to come to the holding area. Det. Sgt Shanahan
told Dylan to try and find out from Alex overnight what had gone on.
Dylan
fell asleep in the car on the way home, getting back at 4am. “Meanwhile
we’re sitting at home, worried sick, not knowing, not being able to
contact anybody,” Ms O’Meara said. “They gave us cards and said ‘ring us
anytime’, but they were not contactable at any point. “We had candles
lit in the house. We’re not very religious, but we went that way. “He
told us: ‘I had to tell them what they wanted to shut them up.’ Those
were his words.” “After
they dropped him home he was exhausted and he tried to sleep, but he
came and sat out here and talked to Peggy and myself,” said Mr Kenny
said. “And he was pretty horrified at the way they shouted at him. “We
were really sickened by it. We didn’t know that we could have gone with
him to support him. They didn’t make that clear to us.”
Dylan
worried through the night. “What really stuck with me was I thought
they would be able to hold me until they were done with me,” he said. “I
didn’t sleep at all. I fell asleep for about 15 minutes before they
rocked up (again).” The detectives were back at 2.35pm. “They
said ‘we've just got a few things we want to clear up, we'll only be
about an hour or so’,” Ms O’Meara said. “They said they were taking him
to Rockingham Police Station.” In the second
interview, this time with Det. Sgt Shanahan and Det. Sen-Const Carbone,
Dylan told the officers he was able to speak with Alex and that “he shed
some light on what happened”. “He (Alex)
accidentally picked (the deceased) up by the forearm and picked him up
the wrong way and I, he heard a popping noise but he thought it was
something like a, like a cracked knuckle,” he said. “So he didn’t think
much of it and he started crying and he, he just like tried to calm him
down and he couldn’t.” Dylan
said Alex tried to use a phone to call the hospital for advice because
he was worried he might have accidentally hurt the baby, but it would
not work. “So he thought he wouldn’t say
anything like because he was afraid of what I’d do as a father to him
and, yeah, um, he went back to bed,” he said. In
her reasons for ruling the second interview inadmissible, Justice
Jenkins said the decision by police to tell Dylan to go home and speak
to Alex was “very unwise”. She said “it was police who effectively
planted the seed in the accused’s mind” that Alex may have been
involved. Asking
Dylan to speak to an imaginary person about his baby’s death was like
“asking a paranoid schizophrenic to induce a psychosis to discover what
had happened on a particular occasion,” she said. As
a result the second interview ended up as a “confusing mishmash”. And
despite not knowing if Shisui’s death was caused by a deliberate act,
the detectives repeatedly and forcefully alleged during the second that
Dylan was at fault. “These assertions were
little more than speculation but they were put to the accused forcefully
as being realistic, if not probable, causes of the deceased’s death,”
the judge said. “It
was not a proper way to conduct an interview of a suspect in the
accused’s circumstances and it was likely to result in the accused
giving unreliable answers.” Last month, Police
Commissioner Chris Dawson appointed a senior officer to undertake a
review of all aspects of the police investigation into the death of
Shisui. “The review is still under way and,
once completed, the findings will be presented to the Commissioner for
his consideration,” a WA Police Force spokeswoman said on Friday. Second police interview ‘vicious’
Dylan was charged with causing grievous bodily harm immediately after
the second interview. The
charges were later upgraded to manslaughter. Police opposed bail and
Dylan was taken to Hakea before being transferred to Graylands Hospital
and then back to Hakea. He eventually got bail
and was able to return to his grandparents’ care, but there were tight
conditions. He couldn’t see his two younger siblings because they were
children. Mr Kenny said the police appeared to pay no attention to
anything they’d told them. “They just went with their angle, and pushed
and pushed and pushed until, as Dylan says, they broke him,” he said.
Dylan
said the worst part of the experience was “feeling trapped”. “I
couldn’t leave the room. I couldn’t do anything to make it stop,” he
said. Ms O’Meara said Dylan wasn’t assertive enough to say “stop”. She
described the second interview as “vicious”. “The
(police) wouldn’t talk to us and they didn’t keep us informed. The
family liaison officer was supposed to be contactable but she did not
answer her phone,” she said. Mr Kenny said he believed it was “totally
wrong” for the detectives to speak to Dylan at length off camera. “I
don’t think they had any right to do that. And he wasn’t healthy or
well enough to be able to answer them or talk to them,” he said.
“Because
we had such faith in him, we absolutely knew that he wasn’t capable of
being involved in any way with the baby’s death. We just know Dylan too
well.” His submissive personality made him more vulnerable to leading
questions. “They suggested to him repeatedly that he smothered the baby
by shoving a blanket in his mouth,” Mr Kenny said. “Yet they had the
coroner’s report at that time, so they should have known that wasn’t
true, but they still suggested it.” The autopsy found “no obvious signs
of suffocation” In her defence submission Ms Fordham made the same
point. “Police
represented to (Dylan) that they had established that the blanket in
Shisui’s mouth had contributed to his death,” she submitted. “They had
no such knowledge and in fact knew that there were no signs of
suffocation.” The
spectre of sudden infant death syndrome, which had claimed the life of
one of Dylan’s younger brothers, remains a possible explanation for the
tragedy. Though it doesn’t explain the baby’s arm fractures. According
to two witness statements Shisui fell to the floor from a chair
positioned on a bed, just a few days before his death. He was “screaming
in pain”, one witness said. Dylan’s grandparents want police to look
closer at the statements supplied by other witnesses. “There
were a few odd things happening around the time (of Shisui’s death). In
the witness statements, some of the witnesses were clearly lying. There
were allegations about a drug party (elsewhere) that night,” Ms O’Meara
said. “The police didn't appear to
investigate those statements to the same degree that they investigated
and interrogated Dylan,” Mr Kenny added. The couple claim Dylan has been
“damaged by the past three years” and is much more withdrawn. While
there’s the possibility he could be re-arrested and charged if new
evidence comes to light, they feel he’s now at the point where hopefully
he can start to recover. “We’re going to help him do that,” Mr Kenny
said. Dylan, who has split with Shisui’s mum, has his own questions. “I
know that break in his arm didn’t come from nowhere,” he said. CJ,
talking to 7News after Dylan’s charges were dropped, spoke up for her
ex. “Dylan
may have some psychological issues but in the eight years that I’ve
known him he’s never been violent, never shown any violence and he’s
always had extreme empathy for people or anyone in pain,” she said. What Justice Lindy Jenkins said
As the controversial second interview progressed, “the questioning
...became more and more persistent, speculative and unfair.” She said
the interrogation took place in circumstances where:
Read the ABC News story on the dropping of the charges by reporter Joanna Menagh, published on January 31, 2019. at the link below: "A Perth man has walked free from the Supreme Court after prosecutors dropped a charge against him of killing his baby son in the wake of a key police interview being ruled inadmissible at trial. Supreme Court judge Lindy Jenkins found the "misguided" police interview with Dylan Clinton O'Meara could not be admitted as evidence because it was not fair or proper. Mr O'Meara was charged after his seven-month-old son, Shisui, was found dead at the family's home in the southern suburb of Rockingham in April 2016. It was alleged the baby had been injured when he was "forcibly" pulled out of his cot by Mr O'Meara, who was then accused of putting a blanket in his mouth to try to settle him. It was further alleged Mr O'Meara then fell asleep while listening to loud music on his iPod before he and his partner woke and found the baby "cold to the touch". Mr O'Meara, who initially spent time in custody and missed his baby's funeral, had been due to stand trial in May. But on Thursday, at a very brief hearing, prosecutors said they had decided to discontinue the case because they had formed the view "there was no longer any reasonable prospect of conviction". Police interview involving imaginary person a 'mishmash': Justice Jenkins ruled that Mr O'Meara was "psychologically vulnerable" at the time of the police interview April 2016 — the second time officers had officially spoken to him. While she ruled the interview was voluntary, she said at one point, the police "had effectively invited" him to have a conversation with 'Alex', an imaginary person, about what happened on the day of his son's death two weeks earlier. "It would be particularly unfair to admit [the interview] into evidence when it was the police who effectively planted the seed in the accused's mind that Alex may have had something to do with causing the deceased's death," she said. "[The interview], which was the result of the police's misguided attempts to illicit a confession from an imaginary person, is a confusing mishmash. "I acknowledge that it is difficult for police officers to interview a person who may have a dissociative personality disorder, however I am satisfied that the manner in which [the interview] was conducted was not the the fair or proper way to conduct the interview of the accused." Justice Jenkins also said it would be "unfair" to admit the evidence because, in the 24 hours leading up to the interview, the accused had had two seizures, had not received a proper meal and had not slept the previous evening while he was in police custody. Man told police 'whatever needed to be said: At an earlier hearing, Mr O'Meara's lawyer Nick Scerri said his client was "suggestable" and "vulnerable" and had told a relative that he had told police "whatever needed to be said, to stop them shouting at him". He told the court Mr O'Meara had the support of the baby's mother. Outside court today, Mr Scerri said his client now wanted to grieve the loss of his son, which had not been able to do properly while facing the manslaughter charge. "He'll be forever heartbroken at not being able to attend the funeral of his son, that's of course at the beginning of the matter," Mr Scerri said. "Dylan and his family would like to give their thanks to the people who have believed in them in the journey, and he sees this as being a just outcome." In a statement, police said they were interested in having further conversations with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to determine the reasons for the case not proceeding."
- In the previous 24 hours Mr O’Meara had two seizures and had already undergone a “very stressful” interview late at night about the death of his son.
- He’d not slept the previous evening because he’d been kept in police custody.
- Mr O’Meara had not had a meal whil in police custody for 12 hours the previous day and evening and was only given a McDonald’s Happy Meal before the second interview, when he said he’d not eaten.
- He’d been told by one of the detectives that he’d faked a seizure and he was “effectively invited to have a conversation with Alex, an imaginary person, to find out what had occurred to the deceased.”
- Mr O’Meara was spoken to by detectives for about 1 ½ hours after the first interview had finished about various matters including what Alex may know about the baby’s death. “None of the conversation was recorded even though it was possible to do so.”
- He was woken up at 2.35 pm to be taken to Rockingham police station for the second interview and “the police made no enquiry as to how much sleep he had since he had been dropped home at about 4.00 am.”
- During the interview, scenarios were put to Mr O’Meara which the police had no factual basis for believing.
- He was encouraged to guess or speculate about whether various things caused his son’s death and was told police did not believe his “exculpatory accounts”.
- Mr O’Meara was interviewed for 2 1/2 hours before getting any break and was then only given 10 minutes.
Justice
Jenkins said: “It would be unfair to admit into evidence what the
accused said about the death of the deceased when he was a very
psychologically vulnerable and he was encouraged by the police to
discuss the death of the deceased with an imaginary person to find out
what happened to the deceased. “This has
similarities to asking a paranoid schizophrenic to induce a psychosis to
discover what had happened on a particular occasion. “It
was the police who effectively planted the seed in the accused’s mind
that Alex may have had something to do with causing the deceased’s
death. “It may be said that the seed was
planted in fertile ground but that is the very reason why the police
should have been very careful not to encourage the accused, who was
prone to dissociate, to do just that.”
The entire story can be read at:
https://thewest.com.au/news/court-justice/dylan-omeara-opens-up-about-being-accused-of-baby-sons-death-ng-b881153051zThe entire story can be read at:
Read the ABC News story on the dropping of the charges by reporter Joanna Menagh, published on January 31, 2019. at the link below: "A Perth man has walked free from the Supreme Court after prosecutors dropped a charge against him of killing his baby son in the wake of a key police interview being ruled inadmissible at trial. Supreme Court judge Lindy Jenkins found the "misguided" police interview with Dylan Clinton O'Meara could not be admitted as evidence because it was not fair or proper. Mr O'Meara was charged after his seven-month-old son, Shisui, was found dead at the family's home in the southern suburb of Rockingham in April 2016. It was alleged the baby had been injured when he was "forcibly" pulled out of his cot by Mr O'Meara, who was then accused of putting a blanket in his mouth to try to settle him. It was further alleged Mr O'Meara then fell asleep while listening to loud music on his iPod before he and his partner woke and found the baby "cold to the touch". Mr O'Meara, who initially spent time in custody and missed his baby's funeral, had been due to stand trial in May. But on Thursday, at a very brief hearing, prosecutors said they had decided to discontinue the case because they had formed the view "there was no longer any reasonable prospect of conviction". Police interview involving imaginary person a 'mishmash': Justice Jenkins ruled that Mr O'Meara was "psychologically vulnerable" at the time of the police interview April 2016 — the second time officers had officially spoken to him. While she ruled the interview was voluntary, she said at one point, the police "had effectively invited" him to have a conversation with 'Alex', an imaginary person, about what happened on the day of his son's death two weeks earlier. "It would be particularly unfair to admit [the interview] into evidence when it was the police who effectively planted the seed in the accused's mind that Alex may have had something to do with causing the deceased's death," she said. "[The interview], which was the result of the police's misguided attempts to illicit a confession from an imaginary person, is a confusing mishmash. "I acknowledge that it is difficult for police officers to interview a person who may have a dissociative personality disorder, however I am satisfied that the manner in which [the interview] was conducted was not the the fair or proper way to conduct the interview of the accused." Justice Jenkins also said it would be "unfair" to admit the evidence because, in the 24 hours leading up to the interview, the accused had had two seizures, had not received a proper meal and had not slept the previous evening while he was in police custody. Man told police 'whatever needed to be said: At an earlier hearing, Mr O'Meara's lawyer Nick Scerri said his client was "suggestable" and "vulnerable" and had told a relative that he had told police "whatever needed to be said, to stop them shouting at him". He told the court Mr O'Meara had the support of the baby's mother. Outside court today, Mr Scerri said his client now wanted to grieve the loss of his son, which had not been able to do properly while facing the manslaughter charge. "He'll be forever heartbroken at not being able to attend the funeral of his son, that's of course at the beginning of the matter," Mr Scerri said. "Dylan and his family would like to give their thanks to the people who have believed in them in the journey, and he sees this as being a just outcome." In a statement, police said they were interested in having further conversations with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to determine the reasons for the case not proceeding."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-31/baby-death-charges-against-perth-father-dropped/10766806
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/c
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/c
