NO JUSTICE AT ALL HERE

A murderer could be walking the wards of Perth's main maternity hospital more than four years after the suspicious fatal poisoning of a one-week-old baby. "How many other deaths have there been which have been mistakenly attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome which might have been a deliberate poisoning and work of a murderer?" lawyer Peter Collins asked state coroner Alastair Hope. Mr Collins, representing the baby's mother, Sharon Anderson, said the infant's family, authorities and the broader community would never know the full circumstances surrounding the tragedy. In his closing submissions, Mr Collins said King Edward Memorial Hospital's response to the massive overdose of the baby on November 15, 2000, was "utterly dilatory, shamefully disorganised and contemptuously complacent". "We wonder whether the parents of a professional, middle-class family from suburban Perth whose child collapsed in similar circumstances would have excited the same level of disinterest as the child of an unsophisticated, traditional Aboriginal woman from the central desert," Mr Collins said, declaring Ms Anderson's innocence.

The baby boy, who is not named for cultural reasons, died four months after being given the overdose. Earlier during the inquest, Mr Hope was told staff initially thought the baby was a victim of SIDS, but a test uncovered the lethal levels of codeine and paracetamol in his system. The overdose would have required three to four Panadeine Forte tablets to have been deliberately and secretly crushed, dissolved and given to the baby orally.

Ms Anderson, 37, a shy woman from a remote community near the northern Goldfields town of Wiluna, was interviewed by police after the overdose and denied giving her son any drugs. Police, hospital management and the Australian Nursing Federation came under fire during the inquest for delays in investigating the death, with some staff not giving statements until more than a year after the overdose.

Felicity Zempilas, counsel assisting the coroner, yesterday submitted that Mr Hope should make a finding of unlawful homicide, but said the perpetrator of the offence could not be identified. Ms Zempilas, who has written to 11 other children's and maternity hospitals to ensure the tragedy has not been repeated elsewhere in the state, said Ms Anderson had had the greatest access to the baby. But she said Ms Anderson had no motive to harm her child, no history of abusing her three other children and little opportunity to administer the overdose. "All staff members who had access to the baby remain under suspicion ... it is unfortunate no staff member can be positively excluded," Ms Zempilas said.

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