– They have lived with this for 6.5 years and can now finally breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate Christmas with their boy in peace. Father said in the Court of Appeal that he has faith in the system. And he has had that belief confirmed through today’s acquittal. That’s what Henriette Willix says to news. She is the man’s defender. The Borgarting Court of Appeal has now acquitted the father in his 30s who was accused of abusing his then three-month-old son. Has always maintained his innocence The indictment was that the father should have raged and/or hit his son’s head against a firm surface, so that the little baby suffered life-threatening head injuries on 8 June 2016. The child had marks both on the back of the head and on the right upper arm. He was on a ventilator for the first five days after admission. He was discharged from the hospital after 20 days. The father was charged for a full five years before the prosecution brought charges in April 2021. He was then charged with having caused significant damage to another person’s body or health. The penalty is 15 years in prison. For over six years, he has maintained his innocence and denied criminal guilt. In the judgment from the Court of Appeal, it appears that the judges were divided into a majority and a minority on the issue of guilt: Two appeal judges and four fellow judges were in favor of acquittal. One co-judge thought it was proven that the father was guilty. The prosecutor and state attorney Andreas Strand had submitted a request for imprisonment for two years and nine months. – The public prosecutor’s office is taking note of the verdict and we will go through it thoroughly before deciding how to deal with it, says Strand to news. They have not decided whether they will appeal. A number of experts in the court The case was heard by the Borgarting Court of Appeal from the end of October to the end of November. A total of 17 experts then had to explain themselves to the seven judges: Nine medical experts were court-appointed experts. Three of these had a so-called broad mandate. Four medical experts were summoned by the defence/prosecutor’s office as expert witnesses. Four other experts were called as expert witnesses to shed light on relevant professional research and practice. The reason for the many experts is a big disagreement about whether three characteristic head injuries can say something about whether an infant has been subjected to violence – the fillerist – or not. In a number of cases, news has told about the heated professional dispute about how the evidence should be interpreted in racketeering cases. There is division between different expert circles in several countries. SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME: The hypothesis has been that the child is shaken so violently, shattered, that it can cause acute brain damage with subdural and retinal haemorrhages. Illustration: TOM BOB PERU ARONSEN / news Sticking to his explanation The son has always lived at home with his mother and the accused father – with the exception of the first time after the incident. The police had then imposed a restraining order on the father. But since then, both parents have had the daily care of their son, who is now six years old. He is completely healthy and lives a life without lasting pain after the injuries in 2016. Since 2016, the father has stuck to his explanation that the boy became completely limp and lifeless during a nappy change on the changing table. The father should have then called 113 and performed CPR until the ambulance arrived. The unusually long investigation was due, among other things, to the strong disagreement about rag shaking that characterizes the professional environment. State attorney and prosecutor Andreas Strand has previously said that. The case was first heard in Ringerike, Asker and Bærum District Court in November and December 2021. There, the father was sentenced to 120 days in prison. The sentence was then appealed by both the father and the prosecution. The court: Cannot ignore the doubt In the overall assessment of the evidence, the majority of the judges in the Court of Appeal point out that it has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the injuries are due to rag shaking and/or other violence against the child’s head. In the judgment, it appears that the majority of the experts with a so-called broad mandate believe that the injuries may have other causes than violence, such as an illness: “Such uncertainty and doubt among the court-appointed experts with a broad mandate is difficult for the majority to ignore. All of them have extensive experience and are considered well competent to assess the various causal explanations that have been put forward in this case.” Believes the verdict will affect other cases During the trial, both the defense and the prosecution emphasized that this case is fundamentally important. They believed that the outcome of the case could lead to how the healthcare system, the police, the prosecution and the courts should deal with so-called filler-listing cases in the future. – The sentence is of course most important for the father and the whole family. But it will also have great significance for the treatment of such cases in general in Norway. The Court of Appeal’s reasoning shows that in this area one cannot disregard the fact that the intracranial findings can have several different explanations, and that it is not possible to draw safe conclusions from such findings to a preceding external sequence of events, says defense attorney Willix to news. – There is therefore reason to believe that we will see petitions for reinstatements of previous convictions. The judgment also has several other discussions that will have significance beyond the current case, she continues. The prosecutor and public prosecutor Strand has the following comment: – The Court of Appeal has concluded that there is good coverage for rag shaking to cause the damage described in the case. This has been disputed. Furthermore, the judgment is distinctly specific regarding this child in question. In these cases, each individual case must be assessed concretely after a thorough examination of the child. Can’t draw certain conclusions The question is whether the prosecution and the courts should be able to equate such injuries with violence: Whether there is proven causality between rag shaking and the so-called “triad” of head injuries. Or whether the damage could have occurred in other ways. The man’s other defender, Frode Sulland, believes that it is not correct that it has been disputed that rag shaking can produce such findings as are referred to as the triad – neither generally nor specifically in this case. – What is and has been disputed is what conclusions can be drawn from such a discovery to a previous course of events. And the very central thing about this important judgment is that it shows how such findings can have several other possible causes. In the judgment from the Court of Appeal, it is emphasized that there is considerable room for doubt in such cases, and that no definite conclusions can be drawn yet: “In the overall assessment of the evidence, it is also a point that the mechanism between the individual components of the triad and rag shaking is not known. This leaves a general room for doubt as to whether there are other concrete circumstances in the case that can explain the findings. It is also a point that the scientific basis is under development. With further research, the probability that the three aforementioned findings are due to rag shaking can either be strengthened or weakened. No definite conclusions can therefore be drawn at the present time.” Disagreement about rag shaking (Shaken baby syndrome) “Shaken baby syndrome” is believed to be the result of the abuse of infants and toddlers. The hypothesis has been that the child was shaken so violently, that it could cause acute brain damage with subdural and retinal haemorrhages. The shaking of the child is believed to trigger strong forces and correspondingly large head injuries. “Shaken baby syndrome” is characterized by a so-called triad of injuries: Brain haemorrhage outside the brain (subdural haemorrhage), haemorrhages inside the eyes (retinal haemorrhage) and other damage to brain tissue. There is a lack of scientific documentation as to whether this is correct. There is professional disagreement about the diagnosis internationally, but the Norwegian professional community believes the condition is real. A Swedish literature review (SBU report) from 2016 of nearly 3,700 research articles on “Shaken baby syndrome” concludes that there is limited knowledge base (low quality evidence) that the symptom triad can be linked to traumatic shaking, and that there is insufficient knowledge base (very low quality evidence) for the triad’s diagnostic safety in traumatic shaking. The SBU report has received criticism for alleged methodological weaknesses and contrived themes. A so-called consensus report from 2018 asserts that the rag shaking diagnosis is a widely recognized medical diagnosis. There are various theories as to what the bleeding in the head can be due to, if the cause is not rag shaking. It can be due to complications during childbirth or congenital hydrocephalus. Reference is also made to studies which show that a large proportion of children are born with a subdural haemorrhage. This often disappears by itself. Opponents of the term “Shaken baby syndrome” believe that many caregivers have been innocently convicted of having stuffed their child. At the same time, there are undoubtedly cases of child abuse in such cases. The professional community in Norway has gradually moved away from the term “Shaken baby syndrome” as this says more about the mechanism than you want to know in some cases. Instead, the term “inflicted head injury” or “Abusive head trauma” (AHT) is used. AHT takes into account that the injuries can be caused by several factors, such as shaking in combination with blunt force. Since there is doubt and disagreement among medical experts, which in turn has major consequences for the legal process, research has also been done on this in Norway. In 2020 and 2021 respectively, a legal and a medical research report came out which concluded that several parents may have been wrongly convicted. Both reports received strong criticism from the country’s leading forensic pathologists. (Sources: Norsk Helseinformatikk, Store norske lexikon, Statens beredning för medicinsk och social utvalikningen and news) Experts: Sees contours of judicial murder news has previously revealed how a few medical experts often act as experts in such court cases in Norway. This has been pointed out and criticized by several lawyers as a possible legal certainty problem. The Attorney General has given notice that the prosecuting authority should avoid appointing the same persons in such cases of serious child abuse. Another consequence of the fact that there are so few experts in forensic medicine in Norway is that a relatively small group both issues and checks expert statements in various legal cases. Hi! Care to share some immediate thoughts? Or do you have specific tips that we should take a closer look at? Feel free to get in touch. Signal: +47 970 14 290 I have previously reported on, among other things, this:
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For six years, the father has been accused of mistreating his own baby – news Trøndelag
