Eventually the law caught up with statistics, and Sally Clark was freed when
the Court of Appeal quashed her conviction in January 2003. Further medical
analysis of the case by experts highlighted both the difficulty of deriving firm
conclusions from post mortems examinations on infants and the highly
equivocal or fragile nature of the pathological evidence that was used against
Sally Clark. Moreover, later consideration of the medical evidence indicated
that the body of the second child to die, Harry, had the infection
staphylococcal aureus, raising a strong possibility that he died from
staphylococcal sepsis.
248
After winning the case and being released a journalist
said to Sally Clark “So, you finally won” to which Sally Clark said: “There are
no winners here”. Sally Clark died aged 42 years on 16 March 2007. Some of
her friends believe that Sally died of a broken heart.
___________________
248
Roger W Byard “Unexpected infant death: lessons from the Sally Clark
case” Medical Journal of Australia 2004; 181 (1): 52-54
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