ANOTHER CASE OF GULIT BEING ASSUMED DESPITE CONSTANT CONFLICTS IN THE MEDICAL EVIDENCE

Dubbed the "salt killers" and "poison parents", Ian and Angela Gay were convicted of the manslaughter of foster son Christian Blewitt. But now there is a growing body of support who believe they are innocent. The couple have now been given leave to appeal against their conviction

It was the decision by Angela Gay to go back to work as her foster son lay dying that seemed to sum up her callousness. The boy did not matter, it seemed to suggest. She and her husband had fostered him, but he was not the "perfect son" they had wanted. They had force-fed him salt and Christian Blewitt died a cruel death. It ended a short, troubled life.

At the end of last year, Angela, who is from Merthyr Tydfil, and husband Ian went on trial at Worcester Crown Court. The hearing attracted much newspaper and television coverage. One of those watching the so-called Salt Killers' trial was solicitor John Batt. In January 2003, he had helped win the freedom of family friend Sally Clark after she had been jailed for killing two of her infant sons. As the Gays' trial unfolded there was one thought in his mind, "Here we go again."

The Gays were each sentenced to five years in jail in January 2005. They had not killed Christian by hitting him as was claimed at first, but had shoved salt in his mouth after he had acted up. They were selfish and had made "a deliberate choice in cold blood" how to punish Christian, the court heard.

Mr Batt, who had seen Sally Clark demonised in the same way, saw the trial differently. He said, "To me it is clear that this case should not have got to court. I don't believe that there was a killing. "But with a child dead, in the emotive atmosphere of a courtroom, it was all too easy for the jury to believe that."

Christian Blewitt suffered hardship he did not deserve. His death, at just three years of age, came as the Gays vowed to give him the chance of a better life. Within five weeks of being put in their care, he was dead. But did they kill him? John Batt is not the only one who thinks not. Bill Bache, who represented Angela Cannings, another woman wrongly accused of killing her children, is of the same mind. Both have joined forces to prepare the couple's appeal. Significantly, even a Home Office pathologist who did a postmortem examination of Christian's body doubts the safety of the convictions.....

Christian had just turned one when he was taken from his mother and had already been in hospital a number of times. Attempts to rehabilitate the little boy with his biological father had failed, so it was decided to place the kids with Mr and Mrs Gay. The placement began on November 1, 2002. The three children would be at the Gays' house for 13 weeks. A week later, Mr Gay rang social worker Gillian Jones to ask what was wrong with Christian. He said he would withdraw into himself when his brother was not around. He described the child as a "vegetable" and like a "zombie." Ms Jones said she rushed round to the couple's house to "read them the Riot Act" for having too high expectations of Christian. She reminded them of his difficult history and they phoned her the next day to say they felt terrible for not giving Christian a chance.

Ms Jones' next scheduled visit with the couple on December 10 would never be kept. On Sunday, December 8, Christian had a tantrum and threw his dinner on the floor. Mr Gay put him into his sister's cot because he was behaving like a baby. Then, according to the prosecution, Christian was force-fed four teaspoons of salt as punishment. He went floppy and Mr Gay rushed him to a hospital in Dudley. He was then moved to Birmingham's Children Hospital where he was sedated. For two days the Gays thought Christian would be okay. Then they were told he was dying.

They were placed under arrest when Christian died four days after being admitted to hospital. They were not able to say goodbye to the other children or attend Christian's funeral. The authorities had acted over two issues: there were injuries to his brain and they had found what were described as high levels of sodium in his blood. The Gays were told they were being held responsible for both.

Two years passed while the case was being built and at the end of last year the trial of the "Poison Parents" began. It lasted seven weeks. In reaching its verdict, the jury discounted the idea that the couple had beaten Christian, but found them guilty on the basis that they had administered salt to him, and they were convicted of manslaughter. The couple's coldness to the child was apparently revealed in the detail: that Angela Gay returned to work three weeks into the placement after promising to stay off for 13 and even went to work when the boy was in hospital.

But is there evidence Christian was killed? Or is this a case, as the couple's supporters suggest, where an argument that the Gays did not care about Christian has been used in the absence of conclusive evidence? For a start, the couple had been told Christian was improving under sedation. Mrs Gay's work was 10 minutes from the hospital and her husband waited at the child's bedside. His earlier "zombie" comments arose out of a growing fear the child might be ill, it is claimed.

Supporters of the Gays have returned to two earlier cases, bringing together the appeal team of John Batt and Bill Bache. When Mrs Clark's 1999 conviction was quashed in 2003 questions were raised about the evidence of two expert witnesses at her trial. One pathologist had not revealed that one of the children, eight-week-old Harry, had been suffering from a brain infection. Another wrongly said the chances of two babies dying naturally in the same family were 73 million to one. Then, in December 2003, as Mrs Cannings's convictions were overturned, the Court of Appeal said parents should not be blamed for the death of a child on disputed medical evidence alone.

John Batt was Mrs Clark's solicitor and a consultant on the Cannings case. He claims that in general police and prosecutors tend to believe medical experts without question. In Mrs Clark's case it was initially claimed that Harry was shaken; then, at trial, it was claimed he was smothered. "The idea is firmly established in the minds of all the prosecuting people that she is a murderer," he said. "They think that if the baby wasn't shook, she must have suffocated both of them to death. They know she's a murderer because experts say so."

In Ian and Angela Gay's case, it was initially suggested the child had injuries to the brain caused by the couple. At the trial that was found to be wrong. "At first, there was overwhelming evidence of blunt force trauma," explained Mr Batt. "But the bruises only happened two days before he died and he was in hospital for four days. "The speculation is that those kinds of injuries can be caused to very young children who are wriggling during treatment in intensive care. They had to abandon the blunt force trauma theory and go back to the salt poisoning. "The whole mindset had been established and it set up the scene for all the terrible things that happened thereafter.

"The Crown Prosecution Service, the police and social services are looking for certainty all the time: 'Tell us how this baby died and we will take the action we have to.' "But there were 12 experts - all very well qualified people - and they could agree on virtually nothing."

It has since emerged that Christian had been born six weeks prematurely. He had been diagnosed with a condition called hydrocephalus. It was once known as "water on the brain", although it actually relates to an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid. One of the dangers related to such a build-up of fluid, according to sources such as Healthcommunities.com, an internet medical resource maintained by US doctors, is "the development of abnormally high or low levels of sodium in the blood that can worsen confusion and precipitate seizures". The Gays' supporters argue that evidence of the illness - also including heart damage - would have established a more plausible explanation for his death.

Following the conviction, pathologist Dr Peter Acland, who performed one of the post-mortem examinations on Christian, told BBC radio that the "high blood sodium level" which caused Christian's death was "not necessarily" salt poisoning. "He could have obtained the salt accidentally, or else there may have been a disease process that none of us could elicit," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, I've not heard evidence which convinces me that this child has been deliberately poisoned by the defendant."

According to Mr Batt, "The real problem is that the criminal trial is not a search for the truth, it's a search for a winner. "We live in a blame culture so when there is a dead baby and the doctors can't agree how it died, it has got to be somebody's fault." It was the emotion of the case that made it such a painful one for the jury.

Ian and Angela Gay are in prisons more than 100 miles apart, now with the news that they have been given leave to appeal against their conviction. John Batt believes, if they are lucky, that appeal could be heard by the end of the year. Will it paint a different picture to the trial: that Christian's death was heartbreaking and a tragedy - but not manslaughter?


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