Far Too Little, Far Too Late: Goudge Report Slams Those At Heart Of Child Forensic Pathology Travesty
Posted October 1, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Families were torn apart, individuals wrongly sent to prison, and lives forever shattered, and when action was taken it was “far too little, far too late.”
Devastating flaws in Ontario’s child forensic pathology system were the subject of a scathing review by Justice Stephen Goudge, released to the public Wednesday. In his report, Goudge ripped disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith (pictured) for his crucial role in a series of wrongful convictions that in one case sent an innocent man to prison for more than a decade for a crime that never happened.
“Dr. Smith was adamant that his failings were never intentional,” the Ontario Appeal Court judge wrote in his 1000-page review which followed a months-long inquiry.
“I simply cannot accept such a sweeping attempt to escape moral responsibility.”
“When the pathology is flawed or there is a failure of the oversight required to ensure its quality, the consequences are devastating.”
“He achieved the status of a leading expert in the field in large part because there was no one who had the training, experience and expertise to take him on.”
Goudge contends the once-esteemed doctor “admitted his own arrogance” and “actively misled” his superiors and the courts.
Among the victims of this disastrous breakdown in the system, William Mullins-Johnson. Mullins-Johnson spent 12 years in prison for the rape and murder of his four-year-old niece. Her death was later put down to natural causes.
“There was no crime in my case,” Mullins-Johnson said Wednesday. “…and I was sent to jail for a murder that didn’t even happen, for a sexual assault that didn’t even happen.”
Smith presided over that case and others, and it was his work that prompted the judicial inquiry.
In nearly half of 45 autopsies he conducted over a decade beginning in 1990, evidence of errors was found.
Thirteen of those examinations resulted in criminal charges. In another case where he concluded a mother had fatally stabbed her seven-year-old daughter, it turned out a dog mauling was responsible. In another case he asserted a mother had killed her 11-month-old son, when he’d knocked his head on a table.
“It’s always sad when you see a professional who’s got the kind of career he has, being subjected to this kind of criticism, but I fear he merited it, you know. And I think he would probably be the first to admit it,” said lawyer for the wrongly convicted, James Lockyer.
The Justice doesn’t solely lay the blame at Smith’s feet, however. He also calls to task the province’s former chief coroner James Young and his deputy, Jim Cairns, as failing in their oversight of Smith.
“Dr. Young continued to defend the indefensible in the name of saving the reputation of the (coroner’s office),” Goudge writes.
“When he finally did act, it was to protect the reputation of the office and not out of concern that individuals and the public interest may already have been harmed.”
Goudge has made 169 recommendations to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. Among them: accredited training at Canadian medical schools for forensic pathologists, a legislative body to oversee the chief coroner’s office, and the establishment of a specialized forensics unit.
Premier Dalton McGuinty responded by saying the province was anxious to do what it could to overhaul the system.
“A tragedy has unfolded here in Ontario and we’re looking for ways to move beyond that and to redress the wrongs,” McGuinty said. “We need to turn the page.”
Goudge also called for more than 140 other forensic pathology cases to be reviewed.
Read Justice Goudge’s full report and recommendations here.
