Is Kathleen Folbigg an innocent victim of SIDS?

Angela Cannings' legal appeal was based on several factors but principally that the expert medical testimony and statistical evidence of Professor Sir Roy Meadow was misleading.

Michael Mansfield QC argued that, were the trial to take place now, "it is unlikely the Crown would call Professor Meadow as a witness, or, if they did, it would have to be done with a health warning attached to it".

Angela Cannings' appeal was the third in a series of high-profile British cases involving infant deaths where prosecutors relied on statistical medical evidence from scientific experts to convince juries to convict. She joined two other British women also freed after being accused of killing their children.

Sally Clark, 38, had been jailed for life for murdering her two baby sons but was cleared by the British Court of Criminal Appeal in January 2003. A June 2003 jury at Reading Crown Court also cleared 35-year-old pharmacist, Trupti Patel, of murdering her three babies.

The three judges from the British Court of Criminal Appeal that decided Sally Clark’s conviction was unsafe, took the unusual step of revealing full details of why her convictions were quashed.

Mrs Clark, who had always protested her innocence, was convicted of the murders in November 1999 at Chester Crown Court. She was accused of killing her 11-week-old son Christopher in December 1996 and 8-week-old Harry in January 1998 at the home she shared with her husband Steve in Wilmslow, Cheshire.

Lord Justice Kay, giving the court's reasons for overturning her conviction, said the Crown had taken the "right and proper course" not to seek a retrial. The judge said, "We would have taken a great deal of persuading that on the state of the evidence as we now know it to be, any jury could properly have been sure that either or both of these children were murdered".

Lord Justice Kay, sitting with Mr Justice Holland and Mrs Justice Hallett, added, "When the medical evidence is as divided as it is in this case, it seems to us that it would in all probability be impossible, even if the case was reheard, to reach a conclusion with the required degree of certainty about this matter".

The Clark, Patel and Cannings cases have drawn the legal spotlight to SIDS and infanticide in Britain.

All three cot death cases have highlighted the difficulties for police investigating the sudden and unexpected deaths of infants. The trials have also highlighted one of the main obstacles to proving a case against a mother accused of killing her own babies - that of motive.

Donna Anthony, of Yeovil, Somerset, was 25 when she was given 2 life sentences in 1998 for murdering her daughter and son.  She has always claimed that her children were victims of cot death but an appeal to quash the convictions was unsuccessful in June 2002. Sir Roy Meadow was also an expert witness in the case against her. Donna Anthony has been in a Durham jail for the last five-and-a-half years. She is now seeking a re-investigation of her case.

In Australia, Kathleen Folbigg steadfastly maintains her innocence while her murder convictions continue to ignite speculation about what causes mothers to kill their own children. It is the inherent danger of miscarried justice that continues to exist while mystery and uncertainty surrounds SIDS and its possible causes. Those inherent dangers are compounded if unexplained infant deaths result with authorities wrongly targeting innocent mothers who have lost children to SIDS, as evidenced by the recent British cases.