murder at great ormand street or was it.

[David1819]

if the hospital really thought this why wear they still letting her near him.

and if they were watching him all the time how could she have done it.

They did try. Several hospital staff where suspicious, and the they planned to send him to a secure psychiatric ward where only doctors could access him, He died two days before he was schedule to move.

They where not watching him all the time. Just because they have a patient being monitored by machines 24/7 does not mean they have doctors and nurses stare at him all day.

[nugnug]

but surely when hes mother was visiting they shhould of been watching if they really suspected she was doing that.

[David1819]

With respect, I don't think the above is a "good article" - it's an article which offers a number of statements and invites the reader to accept them as fact. Without access to the actual evidence, there's no way of knowing if these are fact or not.

For example, "a nurse said... he was full of smiles for his father, but only sometimes had smiles for his mother." Two points here - firstly, his mother was with him all the time - it would be odd, to say the least, if such a sick child was "full of smiles" all the time. Secondly this statement is attributed to "a nurse." Just one. What about all the other medical staff (tens, maybe hundreds, as pointed out previously.) Did none of them make such an observation?

The end of the article is pure conjecture - "played her final trick" ... went into the fridge... poured salt into the feed. There appears to be evidence of salt in the bag and the feeding line, but no evidence of how it got there, save the suspicion that the mother put it there. I have a number questions about the "salt free feed" - where was this child getting the necessary amount of salt for normal health and functioning? How much salt is usually in a bag of intravenous feed that is not salt free? (apparently it would take 47 teaspoons of salt ingested at once to kill an adult). What calculation was used to determine the "13 spoons" claim (we still don't know what size of spoon we're talking about?) Was this child ever tested for hypernatremia, and if not, why not? Over what length of time was the feed administered from this particular bag?

Also, although the article says the father made a complaint about contamination, it doesn't say against whom such an allegation was directed.

She may be guilty as charged, but I don't really see the evidence to make this conviction safe. The whole idea that a child who suddenly became inexplicably sick was the basis for suspicion of the mother, via a discredited "expert" and his seriously flawed theories (and of that much, we can be sure ) is worrying. There are far too many cases where the suspicion itself drives the "evidence" to support it, giving items or actions with other, innocent explanations, a sinister slant.

Iain and Angela Gay were convicted of poisoning their adoptive son with salt - again on the basis of "accepted knowledge" based on the "findings" of Roy Meadow. They were cleared of all wrongdoing when it became clear that the child had had serious health issues before they adopted him (which they knew nothing about) and as a result may have had a rare condition which causes a build-up of sodium in the body.

Iain and Angela Gay where in a different situation, Their child collapsed and died at their home in one incident. David was in medical care for several month and doctors could not make sense of his symptoms. Not to mention the manufactured vomit and tampered urine samples she gave to the medical staff.

Your defending this woman in vein, I can understand you may like to believe their was no foul play because the idea that a women would do this to her child is a difficult pill to swallow. but at the end of the day its best to accept it, Your only denying justice for the kid

[David1819]

but surely when hes mother was visiting they shhould of been watching if they really suspected she was doing that.

I already mentioned they where going to send him to a special facility where only doctors could access him because of their suspicions.

[sandra L]

Your defending this woman in vein, I can understand you may like to believe their was no foul play because the idea that a women would do this to her child is a difficult pill to swallow. but at the end of the day its best to accept it, Your only denying justice for the kid

No, David, I'm not defending anyone or denying anyone anything, I'm asking questions - the sort of questions that I see as raising doubts in this case. I don't have any difficulty believing the incredible capacity human beings have for cruelty, nor do I buy into the "difficult to believe a woman would do this to her child" - we've seen it far too often in its many different forms.

When it comes to taking away people's freedom, and the destruction of lives that entails, I believe we have to be as sure as it's possible to be that we do that based on solid evidence, not vague suspicions based on dodgy "expert" opinion. I'm afraid "just accepting it" is not something I believe is a safe or wise thing to do and I'm guessing if it was you or someone you loved facing serious charges, you'd want to know everything had been properly checked out

What I was trying to say (obviously not very well!) is that the onset of the child's illness could very well have been brought about by a rare, undiagnosed condition which, because it was undiagnosed, caused his health to deteriorate both over time and location. Also, the feed bag with salt - it may have been accidentally switched with a feed bag containing salt (it happens) which is why I asked how much salt is in a "normal" feed bag, and how they came to the "13 spoonsful" claim. I think that's an especially important question in a case which was rooted in Roy Meadows' "research" where the statistics he quoted were "grossly inaccurate" - was the presentation of the salt content of this bag accurate?

[nugnug]

I already mentioned they where going to send him to a special facility where only doctors could access him because of their suspicions.

well thats not good enough really if they really suspected she was a danger  they should of been watching her every time she visted.

[hypermobilecat]

I know this is a long time after last comment, but this has played on my mind since I watched the crime programme about this case. The programme mentioned about the nurse locker containing boxes of salt, explanation given was that salt was not allowed in hospital canteen. fair enough, but why boxes of salt, why not a little salt shaker ? Also I have experienced first hand what it is like to have an unwell child in hospital, especially anything like seizures and asthma at the same time. Initially my daughter  could not breathe very well ,her lips were blue, we called for a doctor to come to the house. he did not seem overly concerned. Eventually our daughter had to be admitted as an in-patient, on the notes it said we had refused an ambulance to take her into hospital. Then age 10, our daughter had a seizure, her dad went into hospital with her as she was dazed and did not realise she had a seizure, I stayed at home as we had a three week old baby. I went in the next day and was told my daughter would be having tests. The nurse had wrote that after I had been in my child had been thrashing about distressed and it was not epilepsy. After a scan, eeg and mri ,my daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy. she was ill a lot, and was admitted to the childrens ward, she could not eat, and they said she had an eating disorder. the paedratrician came on the ward and said the tablets should not have been prescribed as they interacted with the epilepsy meds. I always asked to see the notes and was upset about the things staff had wrote down, that my daughter was rude and angry, she had uncontrolled epilepsy on top of asthma, epilim was making her put on weight and I felt she did not get much understanding. also as a parent felt patronised as well. always ask to see what is wrote down, just because it says something does not mean it is right. I don't know about Petrina Stocker , just hope justice ws done.

[Steve_uk]

I know this is a long time after last comment, but this has played on my mind since I watched the crime programme about this case. The programme mentioned about the nurse locker containing boxes of salt, explanation given was that salt was not allowed in hospital canteen. fair enough, but why boxes of salt, why not a little salt shaker ? Also I have experienced first hand what it is like to have an unwell child in hospital, especially anything like seizures and asthma at the same time. Initially my daughter  could not breathe very well ,her lips were blue, we called for a doctor to come to the house. he did not seem overly concerned. Eventually our daughter had to be admitted as an in-patient, on the notes it said we had refused an ambulance to take her into hospital. Then age 10, our daughter had a seizure, her dad went into hospital with her as she was dazed and did not realise she had a seizure, I stayed at home as we had a three week old baby. I went in the next day and was told my daughter would be having tests. The nurse had wrote that after I had been in my child had been thrashing about distressed and it was not epilepsy. After a scan, eeg and mri ,my daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy. she was ill a lot, and was admitted to the childrens ward, she could not eat, and they said she had an eating disorder. the paedratrician came on the ward and said the tablets should not have been prescribed as they interacted with the epilepsy meds. I always asked to see the notes and was upset about the things staff had wrote down, that my daughter was rude and angry, she had uncontrolled epilepsy on top of asthma, epilim was making her put on weight and I felt she did not get much understanding. also as a parent felt patronised as well. always ask to see what is wrote down, just because it says something does not mean it is right. I don't know about Petrina Stocker , just hope justice ws done.

We're not talking about one isolated case of one dose of salt poisoning but persistent ingestion of salt over a number of years. With the greatest respect to you the health professionals can discern who is trying to deceive and who has an emergency like yours. Though rare I'm convinced Munchhausen syndrome by proxy does exist and is a form of mental illness just as schizophrenia or Borderline personality disorder is.

There's another case here which bears similarities to Petrina Stocker. Please don't let these outwardly plausible people deceive you.   http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/a-mother-accused-3/

[nugnug]

I know this is a long time after last comment, but this has played on my mind since I watched the crime programme about this case. The programme mentioned about the nurse locker containing boxes of salt, explanation given was that salt was not allowed in hospital canteen. fair enough, but why boxes of salt, why not a little salt shaker ? Also I have experienced first hand what it is like to have an unwell child in hospital, especially anything like seizures and asthma at the same time. Initially my daughter  could not breathe very well ,her lips were blue, we called for a doctor to come to the house. he did not seem overly concerned. Eventually our daughter had to be admitted as an in-patient, on the notes it said we had refused an ambulance to take her into hospital. Then age 10, our daughter had a seizure, her dad went into hospital with her as she was dazed and did not realise she had a seizure, I stayed at home as we had a three week old baby. I went in the next day and was told my daughter would be having tests. The nurse had wrote that after I had been in my child had been thrashing about distressed and it was not epilepsy. After a scan, eeg and mri ,my daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy. she was ill a lot, and was admitted to the childrens ward, she could not eat, and they said she had an eating disorder. the paedratrician came on the ward and said the tablets should not have been prescribed as they interacted with the epilepsy meds. I always asked to see the notes and was upset about the things staff had wrote down, that my daughter was rude and angry, she had uncontrolled epilepsy on top of asthma, epilim was making her put on weight and I felt she did not get much understanding. also as a parent felt patronised as well. always ask to see what is wrote down, just because it says something does not mean it is right. I don't know about Petrina Stocker , just hope justice ws done.

couldent he have got a little sache of sort if it was just for puting on chips its funny other sttaff were not bringing salt to work.