and said ‘oh oh, smother me mother’

Tasteless title, for which I apologise, but it is a Smiths song.  (the passing of time, and all of its sickening crimes, is making me sad again)

A consideration of AA (A Child) 2012 EWHC 2647 (Fam)  – especially for John Bolch, as I am now taking requests  (other than of the ‘why don’t you just eff off’ variety)

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2012/2647.html

Firstly, either Justice Baker has had the most difficult caseload of all time, or (more likely) he’s had a pile of published judgments in his in-tray waiting to be signed off for a while and has done about six in a week, because this is him again.

Secondly, its another in the developing body of High Court caselaw where Judges who might have been accepting of medical evidence (particularly if it stood up to cross-examination) are now setting it in a broader judicial context of the totality of the evidence to be assessed, and recognition that today’s medical dogma might well be tomorrow’s “well, we USED to think”  – I have been told today of a very interesting judgment forthcoming on this topic where the conclusion is that an earlier fact finding on very serious injuries resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

But anyway, onto RE AA.

Here is the opening background, and one can tell immediately that the mother is going to be under pressure in the finding of fact hearing

1. This is a tragic and extremely difficult case. On 6^th January 2011, a little boy, whom I shall refer to as J, died while in the sole care of his mother. Twelve weeks later, on 1^st April 2011, his older brother, whom I shall refer to as B, then aged four, was found in a state of acute collapse, also whilst in the sole care of his mother, and died three days later in hospital.

1. Police began an extensive investigation, which is still ongoing, into the causes of those deaths. The local authority started care proceedings in respect of the surviving younger sister of the boys, whom I shall refer to as A, now aged two. The local authority contends that the threshold under section 31 of the Children Act for the making of care orders is crossed in this case and seeks findings, first, that the mother neglected her children and, secondly and more seriously, that she was responsible for the deaths of the two boys by asphyxiation. The proceedings were transferred to the High Court and listed before me for a fact-finding hearing held in Portsmouth. This judgment is delivered at the conclusion of that hearing.

Regardless of how things play out, it is plain to see that professionals are going to have high levels of anxiety about this case.  Particularly given the existence of a third child.

And here’s a warning that idle remarks, made without any malice, can take on horrible significance when looked at through the cold microscope of forensic analysis

On another occasion in November, the mother became drunk when caring for the children, who were taken round to DA’s house. There is evidence that on occasions the mother expressed frustration about the demands for caring for the children. She was a regular user of text-messaging and the internet MSN message service and, when chatting to friends by these means, she would on occasions grumble about the children. One example, on the evening prior to J’s death, contains the statement that she could have “fucking killed” B, because he had made J cry and been disobedient, and added an additional remark: “I wish I didn’t have fucking kids.”

The case sets out the detailed medical history, which I won’t go into – I couldn’t summarise it better than the Judge has already done, and if you want to read it, I would go to the source.

The Judge sets out the legal position on reliance on medical experts, with the Cannings case unsurprisingly looming large in that regard.

The approach to expert evidence

1. It is particularly important to bear in mind the point just made above where, as is invariably the case in cases of suspected physical abuse, the evidence adduced includes the opinion of the medical experts. As Ryder J observed in A County Council v A Mother and others [2005] EWHC Fam. 31,

“A factual decision must be based on all available materials, i.e. be judged in context and not just upon medical or scientific materials, no matter how cogent they may in isolation seem to be.”

1. Whilst appropriate attention must be paid to the opinion of the medical experts, their opinions need to be considered in the context of all the circumstances. In A County Council v K D & L [2005] EWHC 144 (Fam) at paragraphs 39 and 44, Charles J observed,

“It is important to remember (1) that the roles of the court and the expert are distinct and (2) it is the court that is in the position to weigh up the expert evidence against its findings on the other evidence. The judge must always remember that he or she is the person who makes the final decision.”

Later in the same judgment, Charles J added at paragraph 49,

“In a case where the medical evidence is to the effect that the likely cause is non-accidental and thus  human agency, a court can reach a finding on the totality of the evidence either (a) that on the balance of probability an injury has a natural cause, or is not a non-accidental injury, or (b) that a local authority has not established the existence of the threshold to the civil standard of proof … The other side of the coin is that in a case where the medical evidence is that there is nothing diagnostic of a non-accidental injury or human agency and the clinical observations of the child, although consistent with non-accidental injury or human agency, are the type asserted is more usually associated with accidental injury or infection, a court can reach a finding on the totality of the evidence that, on the balance of probability there has been a non-accidental injury or human agency as asserted and the threshold is established.”

1. In assessing the expert evidence, I bear in mind that cases involving an allegation of smothering involve a multi-disciplinary analysis of the medical information conducted by a group of specialists, each bringing their own expertise to bear on the problem. The court must be careful to ensure that each expert keeps within the bounds of their own expertise and defers where appropriate to the expertise of others (see the observations of Mrs Justice Eleanor King in Re S [2009] EWHC 2115 (Fam).

1. On behalf of the mother, Miss Judd and Miss Pine-Coffin invite me to bear in mind the decision of the Court of Appeal in the criminal case of R v Cannings [2004] EWCA 1 Crim. In that case a mother had been convicted of the murder of her two children who had simply stopped breathing. The mother’s two other children had experienced apparent life-threatening events taking a similar form. The Court of Appeal Criminal Division quashed the convictions. There was no evidence other than repeated incidents of breathing having ceased. There was serious disagreement between experts as to the cause of death. There was fresh evidence as to hereditary factors pointing to a possible genetic cause. In those circumstances, the Court of Appeal held that it could not be said that a natural cause could be excluded as a reasonable possible explanation.

1. The impact of the Cannings decision on care proceedings was considered by the Court of Appeal in Re U, Re B, supra. Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss P identified the following considerations arising from the Cannings decision as being of direct application in care proceedings:

“(1) The cause of an injury or an episode that cannot be explained scientifically remains equivocal.

(2) Recurrence is not in itself prohibitive.

(3) Particular caution is necessary in any case where the medical experts disagree, one opinion declined to exclude a reasonable possibility of natural cause.

(4) The court must always be on the guard against the over-dogmatic expert, the expert whose reputation is at stake or the expert who has developed a scientific prejudice.

(5) The judge in care proceedings must never forget that today’s medical certainty may be discarded by the next generation of experts or that scientific research would throw a light into corners that are at present dark.”

1. Usually, it is unnecessary for the Family Court to go further into the analysis by the Court of Appeal in Cannings, but in this case Miss Judd invites the court to have regard to the whole of that decision. I remind myself that it was a criminal case involving the deaths of infants under the age of six months, whereas these are family proceedings involving the deaths of two children aged two and four. Nevertheless, I find the analysis by the Court of Appeal of what Judge LJ, as he then was, described as two critical problems, as relevant to the current case.

1. First, I note the paragraphs specifically cited by Miss Judd, in particular paragraphs 10 to 13 of the judgment in Cannings, which amplify point 2 in Butler-Sloss P’s summary in Re U, Re B cited above.

“(10) It would probably be helpful at the outset to encapsulate different possible approaches to cases where three infant deaths have occurred in the same family, each apparently unexplained and for each of which there is no evidence extraneous to the expert evidence that harm was or must have been inflicted, for example, indications of or admissions of violence or a pattern of ill-treatment. Nowadays such events in the same family are rare, very rare. One approach is to examine each death to see whether it is possible to identify one or other of the known natural causes of infant death. If this cannot be done, the rarity of such incidents in the same family is thought to raise a very powerful inference that the deaths must have resulted from deliberate harm. The alternative approach is to start with the same fact, that three unexplained deaths in the same family are indeed rare, but thereafter to proceed on the basis that if there is nothing to explain them, in our current state of knowledge at any rate, they remain unexplained and still, despite the known fact that some parents do smother their infant children, possible natural deaths.

(11) It would immediately be apparent that much depends on the starting point which is adopted. The first approach is, putting it colloquially, that lightning does not strike three times in the same place. If so, the route to a finding of guilt is wide open. Almost any other piece of evidence can reasonably be interpreted to fit this conclusion. For example, if a mother who has lost three babies behaved or responded oddly or strangely or not in accordance with some theoretically “normal” way of behaving when faced with such a disaster, her behaviour might be thought to confirm the conclusion that lightning could not indeed have struck three times. If, however, the deaths were natural, virtually everything done by the mother on discovering such shattering and repeated disasters would be readily understandable as personal manifestations of profound natural shock and grief.”

Later at (13):

“Reverting to the two possible approaches to the problems posed in a case like this, in a criminal prosecution we have no doubt that what we have described as the second approach is correct. Whether there are one, two or even three deaths, the exclusion of currently known natural causes of infant death does not establish that the death or deaths resulted from the deliberate infliction of harm. That represents not only the legal principle, which must be applied in any event, but, in addition, as we shall see, at the very least, it appears to us to coincide with the views of a reputable body of expert medical opinion.”

1. Secondly, in considering the Cannings judgment, I note the observations of Judge LJ at paragraph 22, which amplifies point 5 in Butler-Sloss P’s summary in Re U, Re B cited above.

“We have read bundles of reports from numerous experts of great distinction in this field, together with transcripts of their evidence. If we have derived an overwhelming and abiding impression from studying this material, it is that a great deal about death in infancy, and its causes, remains as yet unknown and undiscovered. That impression is confirmed by counsel on both sides. Much work by dedicated men and women is devoted to this problem. No doubt one urgent objective is to reduce to an irreducible minimum the tragic waste of life and consequent life-scarring grief suffered by parents. In the process however much will also be learned about those deaths which are not natural, and are indeed the consequence of harmful parental activity. We cannot avoid the thought that some of the honest views expressed with reasonable confidence in the present case (on both sides of the argument) will have to be revised in years to come, when the fruits of continuing medical research, both here and internationally, become available. What may be unexplained today may be perfectly well understood tomorrow. Until then, any tendency to dogmatise should be met with an answering challenge.”

1. With regard to this latter point, recent case law has emphasised the importance of taking into account, to the extent that it is appropriate in any case, the possibility of the unknown cause. The possibility was articulated by Moses LJ in R v Henderson-Butler and Oyediran [2010] EWCA Crim. 126 at paragraph 1:

“Where the prosecution is able, by advancing an array of experts, to identify a non-accidental injury and the defence can identify no alternative cause, it is tempting to conclude that the prosecution has proved its case. Such a temptation must be resisted. In this, as in so many fields of medicine, the evidence may be insufficient to exclude, beyond reasonable doubt, an unknown cause. As Cannings teaches, even where, on examination of all the evidence, every possible known cause has been excluded, the cause may still remain unknown.”

1. In Re R, Care Proceedings Causation [2011] EWHC 1715 (Fam), Hedley J, who had been part of the constitution of the Court of Appeal in the Henderson case, developed this point further. At paragraph 10, he observed,

“A temptation there described is ever present in Family proceedings too and, in my judgment, should be as firmly resisted there as the courts are required to resist it in criminal law. In other words, there has to be factored into every case which concerns a discrete aetiology giving rise to significant harm, a consideration as to whether the cause is unknown. That affects neither the burden nor the standard of proof. It is simply a factor to be taken into account in deciding whether the causation advanced by the one shouldering the burden

of proof is established on the balance of probabilities.”

1. Later in the judgment, at paragraph 19, Hedley J added this observation:

“In my judgment a conclusion of unknown aetiology in respect of an infant represents neither professional nor forensic failure. It simply recognises that we still have much to learn and it also recognises that it is dangerous and wrong to infer non-accidental injury, merely from the absence of any other understood mechanism. Maybe it simply represents a general acknowledgment that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Long term readers of this blog will know that I am a huge admirer of Hedley J, and this observation is very well made. I think on shaking cases we are getting very close, judicially speaking, to a conclusion that we simply cannot be sure until all of the evidence is tested forensically whether a child is likely to have been shaken or not, and as a result, I suspect that we may relatively soon get an appeal on an interlocutory decision to place in foster care,  a child suspected of having been shaken.

The Local Authority had run their threshold in parallel – on neglect, and on the far more serious allegations that the mother had smothered and killed two children. The Judge found that they had proved the neglect allegations.

1. The local authority alleges that the mother is culpable of serious and repeated acts of neglect of her children and has set out this allegation in the schedule of findings filed in these proceedings. In their response on behalf of their client, the mother’s representatives have very substantially accepted the allegations. Some issues, however, remained and they have formed part of the hearing before me.

 

1. Having considered the evidence, written and oral, I make the following findings on this aspect of the case:

 

(1) There is evidence that the mother struggled to cope with all of the children. In the early days after B was born, she was unable to cope with his care and often left him in the care of other people, including DA. On one occasion, feeling unable to manage, she left him at the social project where she was receiving support. Later she found it difficult to care for J and A together. As a result she did not always provide adequate attention, stimulation or boundaries for the children.

(2) The mother failed to prioritise her children’s physical and emotional needs, on occasions putting her own needs and interests first. She spent significant periods of time on the internet, including extensive periods communicating with friends via internet chat rooms. The children were expected to fit around the mother’s own wishes and needs. This was a particular concern for the experienced health visitor who gave evidence before me.

(3)On occasions the mother was emotionally neglectful towards the children. On one occasion she announced that she was placing the children in care and packed their bags before being talked out of this by support and social workers.

(4)The home conditions in which the children lived were frequently poor. The mother struggled to keep her home clean and tidy, despite repeated reminders from others, including DA. The home was often left cluttered with rubbish.

(5)On a number of occasions the mother failed to protect and supervise the children so that their safety was at risk. In September 2009, B covered himself in bleach. In October 2009, he was found sitting in bleach. In October 2009, J was taking to hospital having ingested Sudocrem. Stair-gates were fitted but on occasions left open. On other occasions dangerous items were left within the reach of the children, cans of spray, loose wall sockets, paracetamol, scissors, cleaning fluid and medication. On one occasion, J was observed by a health visitor to be in a position to turn a fire on and off. The mother failed on occasion to supervise the children in the street, on one occasion allowing J to walk so far ahead that he was able to cross a road by himself.

(6)The mother struggled to manage the care of the children so as to ensure that they were kept clean and had their nappies changed with sufficient regularity. J was noted on occasions to have a very dirty nappy and to be dressed in dirty, wet and sometimes inadequate clothing. As a result on occasions J and A had very sore bottoms and nappy rashes.

(7)The mother struggled to provide the children with appropriate food. She delayed starting B on solid food. She would give the children inappropriate food on occasions and rely excessively on junk food. J would be fed chocolate biscuits for breakfast. The mother struggled to manage A’s feeding regime as a baby and did not always follow advice on this topic. She told the health visitor that she could on occasions put J straight to bed without giving him any meal if they were late arriving home.

(8)The mother found it difficult to manage the children’s behaviour. She resorted on occasions to harsh chastisement of the children that was both inappropriate for their age and generally excessive. She would smack the children, perceiving their behaviour as “naughty,” not realising that it was often simple normal conduct to be expected of a lively, inquisitive toddler. She would shout at B when he was a baby in a vain effort to keep him quiet. She would resort to corporal punishment to an inappropriate and excessive extent. In October 2010 she was observed to slap B on the legs. She would threaten to smack the children by raising her hand. On occasions she put J in his room for excessive periods and sent him to bed at inappropriate times. On one occasion, as I find, she slapped B on the back of the head after he had run off.

(9)In November 2010 the mother was found drunk in charge of J and A. There is no evidence that this was anything other than an isolated incident; nonetheless it is a matter for considerable concern and jeopardised the safety of the children.

(10)The mother was provided with considerable support throughout the intervention of Social Services. Whilst there is some reason to question the level of support provided, the mother was not always as cooperative with the support workers who asked to assist her. The health visitor felt that her failure to take her advice was wilful. I bear in mind, however, that this mother suffers from a learning disability and I am unsure about the extent to which this was taken into account by the professionals who were trying to help her.

1. There is a further allegation which concerns the father of the two younger children, GM. The mother reported that she had seen him poke J’s genitals with his finger. Despite her concern about this alleged behaviour, the mother continued to allow GM contact with the children. She states that she found it difficult to say no to him and still had feelings for him. The father has played no part in these proceedings. There has been no oral evidence about this matter and I am not in a position to make a finding about whether he did behave in a sexually inappropriate way towards J. I find however that the mother, knowing of the allegation that the father had behaved in that way, failed to protect J from further contact with him.

 

1. Taken together, these findings about the mother’s treatment amount to serious and chronic neglect at a time when she was receiving considerable support through Social Services, as well as from her own mother, DA, and from friends and neighbours. Miss Davis and Miss Dewhurst, on behalf of the local authority, have rightly taken the view that it would be disproportionate to conduct an enquiry into each and every allegation about which there is documentary evidence that the mother was unable to cope, but I have heard enough to reach a clear conclusion. I conclude that this mother was simply unable to cope with the demands for caring for her children.

But on the major allegations, that the two children had been smothered (even in the context of those findings that the mother was unable to cope), the Judge did not agree that this was proven.

There were several clinical features which the experts explored . This is the passage of the judgment specifically on the expert evidence as to whether there was evidence of smothering (as opposed to any other possible cause of death)

Evidence of smothering

1. So far as B is concerned, Dr Cartlidge found no evidence of any general health problems, nor any developmental problems. B was a previously healthy child who died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of four and a half. Dr Cartlidge described this as “very unusual.” J died suddenly and unexpectedly, aged 28 months. Dr Cartlidge described this also as “very unusual.”

 

1. Dr. Cartlidge considered that the evidence of a possible intentional airway obstruction in B’s case included: the fact that B was a healthy child; the fact that he had been well no more than half an hour before his collapse; the fact that he had collapsed suddenly without explanation; and the fact that his brother, J, had also collapsed and died suddenly without explanation. On the basis (which I have rejected above), that the petechiae were present on B on arrival at hospital, Dr Cartlidge concluded that they were consistent with, rather than diagnostic of asphyxiation, but stressed that his conclusion did not turn on the presence of the petechiae. Dr Cartlidge concluded that it is most likely that B died unnaturally and “smothering is probable.” He added, however, that “the medical evidence for smothering is not specific and relies quite heavily on the exclusion of other causes and an assessment of the case as a whole.”

 

1. So far as J is concerned, again Dr Cartlidge found no evidence of any general health problems, nor any developmental problems. Like his brother, J was a previously healthy child who died suddenly and unexpectedly, in his case at the age of 28 months. Once again Dr Cartlidge described this as “very unusual.”

 

1. Dr Cartlidge considered J’s earlier hospital admissions on two occasions to be significant. On 1^st January, J had been well when he went to bed, but two hours later found unresponsive and jerky, with blue hands, feet and face. On admission to hospital some 50 minutes later, he was fully conscious and afebrile, but with petechiae over his chest and upper neck. In Dr Cartlidge’s opinion, this episode considered in isolation would support a diagnosis of a fit, although he noted that the evidence of a fever was weak and the temperature taken in hospital over 37.9 degrees Celsius was not usually sufficient to trigger a febrile fit. So far as J’s second admission to hospital was concerned on 3^rd January, Dr Cartlidge noted that once again J had been well or reasonably well at the time he went to bed. Several hours later, he was found pale with staring eyes and possibly twitching of his hands. On admission to hospital, J was found to be suffering from chicken pox, but was very energetic and afebrile. In those circumstances, Dr Cartlidge ruled out the possibility that he had suffered from chicken pox encephalitis on this occasion. Once again Dr Cartlidge considered that this episode, taken in isolation, would not be of significance. However, when considered in the light of the later events, he considers that the admissions to hospital on 1^st and 3^rd January were concerning. The events that are said to have taken place on those occasions were similar to later events in J’s and B’s lives that resulted in their deaths. However, J’s clinical features on both 1^st and 3^rd January were not typical of a cardiac arrhythmia. Dr Cartlidge thought that smothering could have caused the clinical features in J on both 1^st and 3^rd January, as well as those described in both children immediately prior to their deaths. He therefore concluded that smothering was a plausible explanation for J’s death, but added again that medical evidence of smothering “is not specific and relies quite heavily on the exclusion of other causes and the assessment of the case as a whole.”

 

1. In his oral evidence, Dr Cartlidge said that in his clinical practice he had only come across two cases of children of this age dying without any known cause. He had no experience of two children from the same family dying in such circumstances and he was unaware of any epidemiological study of childhood deaths involving this age group. He was asked to consider a paper produced by counsel for the mother entitled, “Smothering children older than one year of age, diagnostic significance of morphological findings,” by Banaschak and Others (2003) published by Forensic Science International. This paper led Dr Cartlidge to reflect on how B, at the age of four and a half, would have been expected to struggle quite vigorously if an attempt was made to smother him. Cross-examined by Miss Judd, he acknowledged that it was more surprising that there were no marks on the four-year-old child.

 

1. In his oral evidence, Dr White said that the presence of physical signs of smothering would depend on the size and strength of the victim, the size and strength of the assailant and the method by which smothering was inflicted. In the case of child victims, the older the child, the more likely he or she was to struggle and the greater the likelihood of physical signs. Dr White considered that it was possible that B would have scratched himself in an attempt to prevent suffocation, but the fact that there were no scratch marks observed on B did not rule out suffocation as an explanation.

 

1. In passing, I remind myself that Dr White noted two small marks, bruises, on the top of B’s head during his post-mortem examination. He did not, however, suggest that they were indicative of a physical assault. The local authority did not ask the mother about these bruises, nor did they feature at all in the local authority’s case.

 

1. The striking picture provided by the consultant in emergency care, Dr Beardsall, was that B looked like he was sleeping, rather than suffering a life-threatening event.

 

1. Having found, as explained above, that the petechiae on B’s face were not present when he was admitted to hospital, I conclude that there is no clinical evidence of asphyxiation other than the fact that two children died suddenly with cardiac failure, for which no cause had been identified.

So, the Judge concluded that although the deaths had unusual features, there was not clinical evidence to show that they had been asphyxiated, other than that the deaths had no identified cause.  He reminded himself of the other evidence, the number of genetic factors that were particular to this family and the mother’s evidence (particularly that her emphatic denials were convincing) and that whilst he had found her culpable of neglect such that the threshold was made out, there was still a marked difference between that neglect and deliberate murder of two children.

1. Miss Judd rightly points out that, whilst the various experts have pointed to the lack of evidence of any disease or condition that could have caused the death of either J or B, there is equally no evidence of smothering. She submits that it is no more likely that this mother smothered each child without leaving any signs, than that the child died of an unknown, probably as yet unrecognised, cardiac cause.

 

1. This mother has a variety of conditions which are likely to be genetic in origin. Dr Newbury-Ecob accepted that the new variant found in the KCNH2 gene, whilst not a cause of LQTS, might lead to a susceptibility or risk of arrhythmia in the presence of other factors, either genetic or environmental and might be associated with his death in some unknown way. Dr Martin noted that “there are quite possibly a whole host of genetic conditions we know nothing about.” The clear impression from his evidence is that the genetic understanding of cardiac disorders is still evolving.

 

1. I recall again the observations of Judge LJ in Canningsquoted above, in particular that “where there are one, two or even three deaths, the exclusion of currently known natural causes of infant death does not establish that the death or deaths resulted from the deliberate infliction of harm” and that “a great deal about death in infancy and its causes remain as yet unknown and undiscovered.” I also have in mind the observation of Butler-Sloss P in Re U, Re B cited above: “The cause of an injury or episode that cannot be scientifically explained remains equivocal. Recurrence in itself is not prohibitive. The judge in care proceedings must never forget that today’s medical certainty may be discarded by the next generation of experts or that scientific research would throw light into corners that are at present dark.” Finally, I remember the wise words of Hedley J in Re R, also quoted above: “there has to be factored into every case which concerns a discrete aetiology giving rise to significant harm, a consideration as to whether the cause is unknown …. a conclusion of unknown aetiology in respect of an infant represents neither professional nor forensic failure. It simply recognises that we still have much to learn and it also recognises that it is dangerous and wrong to infer non-accidental injury, merely from the absence of any other understood mechanism.”

 

1. I have given extremely careful attention to the opinions of all the experts and Dr Cartlidge in particular. I acknowledge that there is a significant possibility that this mother was responsible for the deaths of the boys and my mind has fluctuated during the course of this hearing and in my subsequent deliberations. There may be in due course other evidence that bears upon this issue. Having considered all the evidence put before me, however, I find that the local authority has not proved on a balance of probabilities that this mother smothered either J or B.

 

1. The consequence of my finding is that, for the purposes of these proceedings, the court and the parties will proceed on the basis that the mother did not smother the boys. For the reasons explained above, however, I have found that the mother was responsible for significant acts of neglect of all the children and on that basis the threshold conditions under Section 31 of the Children Act are satisfied.

This body of caselaw may very well be a watershed moment in care proceedings, where the Courts began taking a stance that the presentation of the parents in evidence can be as pivotal as the seemingly damning medical evidence laid against them, and that mere lack of an alternative plausible explanation than non-accidental injury does not necessarily equate to NAI.  It is liable to lead to the job of Local Authorities in such complex medical cases to be more akin to marshalling and testing the evidence rather than the quasi-prosecutor role that traditionally accompanies trying to prove threshold at a finding of fact hearing.  It is also liable to make senior figures in Local Authorities very nervous about fact finding hearings where the outcomes are now so hard to predict, and the costs so vast.