ARROGANT FORENSIC "SCIENCE" EXPOSED AGAIN

The boy whose adoptive parents face a retrial for killing him by salt poisoning may have been born with an unusual intolerence towards the mineral, The Times has learnt. Ian and Angela Gay, a wealthy couple, walked from the Court of Appeal yesterday after their conviction for the manslaughter of Christian Blewitt, 3, was overturned. They became notorious when portrayed as rich professionals who killed a child placed for adoption because he was not the perfect boy they desired. Judges allowed the Gays’ appeal after hearing fresh expert evidence that a rare condition exists that could provide an explanation for Christian’s death.

There was an excited cry of “yes” from a supporter of the Gays in court as Lord Justice Richards, Mr Justice Penry-Davey and Her Honour Judge Goddard, QC, quashed the guilty verdicts. Tears soon flowed among the crowd of relatives and friends when the court ordered a retrial of what Michael Mansfield, QC, for the Gays, described as, medically, an exceptional case.

Christian, his younger brother and sister were placed for adoption with the childless couple in their mid-thirties after social workers realised that his mother, Tracey Osik, was unable to cope. The children’s new home was an exclusive gated community in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, but the professional couple struggled with the challenge of raising a boy from a difficult background. Only a week after Christian arrived into the couple’s care, Ian Gay, 39, an electrical engineer, was describing the boy as “brainless”, a “vegetable” and a “zombie”. Christian had been with the couple for just a month when Mr Gay rushed the unconscious child, by Lotus sports car, to hospital in December 2002. The boy was found to have exceptionally high levels of salt in his blood and died on his natural mother’s lap four days later, never having regained consciousness.

The couple were convicted of manslaughter based on medical evidence suggesting that at least 4½ teaspoons of salt would have to be swallowed to create the readings. A judge jailed the Gays for five years after accusing them of deliberately making Christian eat salt as a punishment for mild misbehaviour. But Glyn Walters, a retired specialist consultant in chemical pathology, told the appeal judges that he was sure Christian’s blood-salt levels were not the result of poisoning. He pointed out that Christian’s body had failed to excrete the salt as would have been expected during the days he spent dying in a coma. One explanation would be a rare condition, where a region of the brain fails to do its job of detecting high levels of salt and having it flushed out of the system. There had been only two documented cases, both in adults, but there was no reason that a child would be unsusceptible.

Other, non-medical, evidence had counted against the Gays. A total of 11 small bruises below Christian’s scalp and a small cut on his mouth might have been consistent with gripping the boy’s head to forcefeed him salt. The couple had lied or concealed the truth: in particular Christian had bitten Mrs Gay’s hand and she asked her husband not to tell the social worker in case the children were removed. The appeal judges said that they decided the convictions were unsafe only after “anxious consideration of the case as a whole”.

The Gays were cleared of murder at their trial when the jury accepted there might be innocent explanations for the bruises. On the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice in London yesterday, a frail and exhausted Angela Gay, standing beside her husband, read a prepared statement. “After 15 months in prison we are finally free,” she said. “The convictions against us have been quashed. However, we must now face the fresh agony of a retrial. We now know for certain what we have believed all along, that Christian died of natural causes. “We are now just looking forward to going home. Yet again we protest our innocence and hope that one day soon true justice will finally be done.”

Mr Gay’s mother Jacqueline told The Times:“Yes, they had a good many material things — which had been worked extremely hard for. They had got themselves into a good position to achieve their main dream, children by adoption. They moved to a big house in Bromsgrove just prior to getting the three children — complete with a big mortgage, like a lot of people — just to have the perfect home for the children. They adored all of them from the moment they first met them.”

Angela Gay spoke last night of the distress of losing Christian, the child she regarded as her own new son, and disclosed she still hoped she would one day be a mother. Asked how she felt about Christian’s death, Mrs Gay replied: “I was devastated. I was taken to hospital because the shock of what happened was just too much for me to cope with. The grieving process when you lose a child, you can’t describe unless you go through it yourself. It’s just the most intense pain.”

The couple told ITV Central news after their convictions were quashed. Asked whether she had given up hope of having children, Mrs Gay answered: “The longing to have a child has not gone away.” And asked whether she would consider adoption, the 40-year-old said: “It’s too early to say. At the moment I am just coming to terms with being out of prison and back with my family.”

Mrs Gay said: “We were hoping it would all be over today but at least we are back together as a couple and as a family. It seems quite surreal at the moment. It doesn’t seem normal to us as I am just used to being in prison for the last 15 months. It’s just wonderful to be back out.” Mrs Gay added: “Until we went to the appeal court three weeks ago, we hadn’t actually seen each other for over 14 months. “It (being apart) was very difficult because you can’t really express how you are feeling in letters all of the time.” Mrs Gay said that being taken away from her family and losing her freedom for something that she and her husband had not done was very difficult to accept.

Mr Gay said: “It’s all a bit of a dream at the moment — it’s such a long time since we managed to see each other. We have not had much contact for the last 15 months and seeing everyone in one place, it’s just a bit of a shock.” He added: “I think sometimes being locked in a room is just the smallest part of the problem. Being away from your family and friends, especially being away from my wife, has been very hard for me. You lose your whole life in prison.”

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