A review of 88 such cases ordered by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, is expected to say only four of the convictions merit reinvestigation. The result, to be published next month, has angered lawyers, doctors and parents protesting their innocence.
They say they were denied the far-reaching review which in 2003 enabled Sally Clark, a solicitor, to overturn her wrongful conviction for murdering her two babies.
According to one clinician, no pathologist was asked to help with interpreting complex medical reports in the review. Chris Milroy, professor of forensic pathology at Sheffield University, said he believed it was limited to examining only the clinical evidence presented in court.
The attorney-general’s department declined to comment on the alleged shortcomings of the review.
Joe Wainwright, 29, from Salisbury, who was convicted of shaking to death his four-month-old son, is among those who had been pinning their hopes on the review. He is supported by his girlfriend Katrina Drake, a musician.
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Wainwright, a chef, was told last week that his case does not merit reinvestigation. However, the couple have attracted the support of a lawyer, Bill Bache, who is giving his services for free, allowing them to fight on.
While most people in such circumstances cannot afford further legal action, the couple are applying for leave to take their case to the Court of Appeal to argue that their baby son Joshua died of natural causes.
They say the jury in their case was not aware that on three previous occasions Joshua had mysteriously stopped breathing and had been rushed to hospital. Wainwright was arrested when the baby suffered a fourth attack, from which he died 24 hours later.
“At first I fell apart, but now it is overwhelming anger that is stopping us leading a normal life,” said Wainwright, who was sentenced to 3Å years for manslaughter, of which he served 21 months.
“You can’t imagine how it feels to lose your baby like this, to be accused of killing him, to be prevented from having a funeral. It has destroyed my faith in the law.” He is barred from staying overnight at the couple’s home and from contact with Drake’s 10-year-old son from an earlier relationship.
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The attorney-general previously reviewed 297 infant deaths, including the 88 shaken baby syndrome cases, after the release in 2003 of Clark, who had received a life sentence for murdering her two babies, and a second mother, Angela Cannings. Of those 297, 28 cases were identified as being of concern.
Cannings, who was found to have been wrongfully convicted of killing two of her children, was freed in 2003 and Donna Anthony left prison last year after serving seven years of a life sentence for the murder of her two children. All the babies were found to have died from natural causes.
Sir Roy Meadow, a leading paediatrician, was struck off for the flawed evidence he gave claiming the babies in the Clark, Anthony and Cannings cases had been smothered. His advice is believed to have influenced many other cases involving similar expert evidence and has undermined confidence in medical witnesses. They are paid up to £6,000 to advise the defence or prosecution.
Confidence was further eroded last summer when two shaken baby convictions were thrown out. Goldsmith ordered further scrutiny of the 88 cases in which children had died under the age of two.
Penny Mellor, who runs Dare to Care, a pressure group for parents accused of harming their children, is supporting hundreds of families claiming they are victims of miscarriages of justice.
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“All the evidence that freed Sally Clark and the others was evidence not heard in court,” she said. “When you are talking about such controversial convictions, it is obvious the review should include all the medical evidence available.”
Shaken baby syndrome, first identified in the 1970s, has become increasingly controversial amid fierce medical argument. New research has indicated that even very gentle, accidental shaking could be fatal in certain vulnerable individuals.
One leading critic of shaken baby syndrome, John Plunkett, a forensic pathologist of Hastings, Minnesota, has helped secure the freedom of more than 100 wrongly accused parents in America and has given evidence in British cases.
He said experts were still trying to understand the complex biomechanics of head and neck structure. “More people are realising that shaken baby syndrome is nonsense and shouldn’t be used to send people to prison,” added Plunkett.
Clark and four other parents whose convictions have so far been overturned have received no compensation for their imprisonment. Lorraine Harris, 36, of Alvaston, Derbyshire, who was freed last summer after being cleared of shaking her four-month-old baby to death, has suffered the further tragedy of losing a subsequent child to adoption because she was heavily pregnant when she was jailed five years ago.
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“I hope I might be able to see him sometime, I have a solicitor looking into it, but I’m not hopeful,” she said.