I don't know all the details of the case, but I have two comments to make about Keith Baker's response. Firstly, though it may seem unlikely that a previously undiagnosed illness should have exhibited itself only after Christian was placed with the Gays, to infer guilt from this would be a clear example of the "Prosecutor's Fallacy". It needs to be weighed against the unlikelihood of the alternative scenario; namely that two intelligent people (who had passed through the full foster parents' selection procedure) would have been stupid and crass enough to inflict so bizarre a punishment. (Not to mention the difficulties they would have had getting the salt into him at all!) Secondly, it is quite clear why the "...other two foster children not now been retuned". We are talking about things that happened over FOUR YEARS ago - these kids are by now (I hope) permanently settled elsewhere, and to rip them from their adopted families would only compound the injustice.

Martin Tunnicliffe, Kingston-on-Thames, Surrey

Can someone please explain how a seemingly healthy boy up to the age of three is then fostered buy this couple and after a few weeks dies of a very rare condition that had never previously come to light?
Why did the mother go to work the very next day the boy was taken to hospital seriously ill?
Why did the father come straight home and leave his son critically ill in hospital?
I do not know the in depth details of this case but these simple questions do not seem to have been asked, why have the other two foster children not now been retuned to the couple if they are innocent of all charges?

Keith Baker, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire

Roy Meadow has good reason to want to deny child illnesses which could have been triggered by vaccine - as this child's condition coud have been. He was involved with the advice given to Government during the eighties when vaccine trials were taking place.

The big question for me is: why has he and others like him been allowed to add to the atrocity of causing damage to childrenthrough side effects of vaccines and other drugs by falsely blaming parents?

Anne, Surrey, UK

Sadly it is a fact that jurors rely heavily on evidence given at trials by 'expert' witnesses. I can vouch personally for that! The Tonight programme on ITV recently covered this issue.They showed how the surge in crime series' on TV, like CSI, affects the way viewers identify with forensic/scientific evidence. Forensic science has led to huge progress in solving crime and can be a very useful tool, but there is a risk that unrealistic portrayals in TV detective programmes seduce the public into believing it to be foolproof! There are growing concerns within legal circles that jurors' faith in forensic evidence can lead to miscarraiges of justice - indeed recent successful appeals are proof of this. So often the expert goes beyond his or her remit and neglect to tell the jury that the science is not exact. Because the jury are influenced by the qualifications spelt out before the evidence is given, they can be both baffled by the science and truly believe the evidence to be the truth.

Sue May, Royton, UK

Frankly I'm not fully aware of the fact-o-file and nitty-gritties of this crime, but there have been many a few cases where innocent people get falsely implicated due to system's fault , and at times the real culprits do get scot-free , due to inherent lacunae in our legal systems. So, when things ain't going our way, Blame it on system. But where lies the fault ?? Who creates the 'system', which works as well as malfunctions to the likes and dislikes of few....The fact of the matter is, we, as responsible citizens of any nation, are blame worthy of formulating such laws and legislations, which are not foolproof. At times criminals, and their legal-eagle attorneys are more apt and shrewd in reading between the lines of the act, and culling out some escape routes, to bypass the judgement. In India, we have one such legal expert who has gained an infamous reputation of acting as a 'Devils advocate' in handling such high profile cases, where the accused comes from upper strata of the society, did commit the crime yet is able to wriggle out from all this legal wrangles.

Sandy, New Delhi, India

A further element in these linked cases is that the treating doctor often makes the accusation and the police then proceed on the basis that they are acting on a firm opinion. Yet the treating doctor automatically has a conflict of interest because there is always the possibility of medical accident or even medical negligence, up to the limit of gross negligence manslaughter, or murder if one includes the likes of Harold Shipman. The treating doctor always has a theoretical motivation to accuse someone as a method of disguising their own errors, unauthorized experiments or malice.
But once again, Sir Roy's daft beliefs about the liklihood of parents murdering their own children are used to eclipse the logic that if parents can do it, then doctors would be more likely to do so as they are not related to the children. Basic heredity tells us that it is rarely sensible to kill one's own children except in cultural distortions such as parts of rural China and India.

D Samuel, Cambridge, England

"Christian was like a diabetic who suffers a coma and dies, only it wasn’t his blood sugar levels but his salt-water balance that went haywire My family were one of the very few in U.K to have this, or something similar.
Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus.
Even though the family new about it, it was still virtually impossible to keep the balance right in my two nephews, who at the age of nine and ten had to dring 5 to 10 litres of water per day to keep the salt balance from sending them into a coma. Whisc, during the hight of summer, coulkd happen four or five times.
At 46 I personally have to drink between 15 and 20 litres per day.
If the prospective adoptive parents, and more importantly their doctors did not know this. Then it was indeed an accident.
Consider, when I was last in hospital to have it tested, there were only two or three specialists in this kind of diabetes in the whole of U.K!

Ragnar Vagmornasson von Brandenburg-Preußen, Berlin , Preussen/Germany

It was reported that Christian had, presented to hospital on serveral occasions, in his young life, prior to being put up for adoption. It was also reported that as a baby Christian has a condition, which caused fluid on his brain.
Why didn't the initial investigation consider that there could be No Crime, involved in the tragic death of Christian?
It is the quality and accuracy of the 'Child Abuse' investigation which should be scrutinised in this case.
The only comparison with the Victoria Climbie Case is the seemingly inability, in both cases, to investigate child abuse allegations or child abuse suspicions with any expertise.

Tessa Boo, London , W11 1NR