Just when you think it can't get any worse, I see another innocent couple have suffered the nightmare of being wrongly labelled child-abusers, losing their baby son for 12 months into care and all because the courts and expert witnesses got it wrong yet again.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the couple had the added torment and anguish of losing their second child when the mother fell pregnant again and had an abortion because she couldn't bear to have another child taken away.

What a heartbreak and all because one doctor, as high court judge, Mr Justice Ryder, said "unconsciously strayed from the role of expert into the role of decision-maker and the court failed to detect that that was what had happened".

The other week I said there was something seriously wrong in this country when medics, courts and the police, can pillory innocent parents.

As a cautionary tale, this judge thankfully took the unusual step of publicising his judgement so courts, experts and local councils involved in childcare cases could learn lessons for the future.
Let's hope they do. But they never seem to.

Good for his honour naming and shaming consultant neuroradiolologist Wellesley Forbes, who made the damning finding that one of the baby's parents had probably forcefully shaken him. Not true. But it was all too late for the parents who lost their newborn for all those months at just two and a half weeks old. Imagine that nightmare when your infant is snatched away all because you have taken him to hospital.

"This is not a case where there is 'no smoke without fire.' This is a case where a family court and the expert who advised it got it wrong," said the judge.

He made plain the horror for the parents from Oldham who "bore an almost intolerable burden of being unjustly accused of inflicting serious injury on their infant son and experienced the nightmare of what had transpired to be a false finding by a court and lived for 12 months with the opprobrium and suspicion of friends and neighbours".

It was only when the parents were finally allowed to seek a second
opinion from a paediatric neurologist from Sweden that the tide turned.
He concluded that the baby had suffered "a period of profound asphyxia of between 10 and 20 minutes when in the womb and that inflicted injury is not a possible cause of the brain damage."

His conclusion was based "at the cutting edge of medical knowledge", said the judge.

He also rapped the other doctors for initially deferring too much to the court in deciding whether further expert evidence was needed.
How do these people sleep at night?

I only hope that this judge speaking out, saves others from going through the hell this couple were put through.

Without that second opinion those innocent parents and their babe could have been lost to one another forever.

From the care system the child could have been adopted as many have been as a result of wrong findings. What a travesty. When will it ever end?


Will Kate keep quiet?

AS the betting opens on who will replace Kate Middleton, I hope she sticks to her pledge that she won't kiss and tell and refuses to be bought at any price.

So she could have made £5million, maybe more, as the bidding war hots up. So what?

No amount of money can buy you a good name and that's the real price Kate would be paying if she breaks her word.

Koo Stark had the strength of character I admire in staying silent after her affair with Randy Andy, and so too did Lord Snowdon after his divorce from Princess Margaret.

"She is loyal, trustworthy, discreet and proud," says Max Clifford of Kate. And if she is all that now's the time to prove it.
She may be hurting but Kate should take heart and count her blessings at what a lucky escape she's had from joining such a dysfunctional family.

And if she had become a member she would have said farewell to freedom and privacy.

At least now she's got a real chance for living her life in the real world..

That was one hell of a party

"IT was just supposed to be a small gathering with about 60 people," was party girl Rachael Bell's cop-out explanation of how her mother's house got trashed when 200 people turned up.

A small gathering of 60 drink-fuelled teenagers isn't a party, it's a rampage. And that was just asking for trouble.

All Rachael had to do was call the police. Why didn't she pick up the phone when she could see the way it was all going?

Teenagers are notoriously rebellious. And when parents are away, like the party, they all too easily become out of control given the chance.
Have you experienced teenage rebellion? Answers on postcard or email linda.collingnortheast-press.co.uk

Those little things you say

"DARLING what's the first thing you are thinking about when you wake up?" said my friend Pauline to her husband, expecting him to say, "You, darling."

But, no ... in the wake of football mania at the present time, he said: "I was just thinking about the permutations. If Sunderland get 91..."

She told me: "If I'd a wok I would have panned him with it."


Friends will always be there for you

TRUE friends you can count on one hand. I know I can.

How many friends do you have? And what a lot of Tommy rot to say, as a recent report does, that if you're a northerner you're likely to have at least 15 close mates compared to lonely Londoners who only have five shoulders to cry on according to a survey out this week.

Apparently friendship's in the doldrums, with twentysomethings down on average since the Sixties from 14 to six.

It's the quality not the quantity that counts. And true friendship costs. I'm not talking about this quasi friendship of manic texting and emailing.

You can fill the house with so-called friends for a party. But when the chips are down you'll know without a shadow of a doubt who your true friends are and who'll always be there for you through thick and thin. That's priceless.

And where will you find this? It's a top drawer secret, hidden away with your smalls.

To be more specific as one friend said to another: "A true friend is like a good bra, hard to find, lifts you up, gives you support and is always close to your heart."

Or in the inspired words of Kahil Gibran: "And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship.

And he answered saying: Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.

For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace."