THE case of a couple jailed for killing their three-year-old adoptive son has been taken up by the retired solicitor whose tenacity helped expose one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice of recent years.

John Batt, who wrote a book about the battle of Sally Clark, a solicitor, to overturn a conviction for murdering her two sons, is convinced of the innocence of Ian and Angela Gay, jailed for five years in January for manslaughter.

The Gays, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, were characterised by the prosecution as a selfish, well-to-do couple who force-fed Christian Blewitt salt because the difficult toddler failed to meet their expectations of a “perfect” child. Batt said yesterday: “There are all sorts of pointers suggesting something terribly wrong with this verdict.”

He argues that the sudden downgrading of the Gays’ murder charge to manslaughter and disagreements among expert witnesses are among the causes for doubt.

The Clark case changed the climate of public and judicial opinion on parents accused of killing infants after attention focused on the unreliable evidence of Professor Sir Roy Meadow. He suggested the chances of two children of the same family dying of cot death were “73m to one”. Other research has shown the odds could be as short as 64 to one.

The quashing of Clark’s conviction was followed by the acquittal of Trupti Patel, a pharmacist, for killing her two babies and the successful appeal of Angela Cannings, a shop assistant, against her life sentence for smothering two of her babies.

A landmark ruling in the Cannings case given by Lord Justice Judge was supposed to signal a legal overhaul of such trials. In future, no parent was to be prosecuted if the outcome hinged on disagreement between experts.

Yet, according to Batt, that was what occurred in the Gays’ trial. “I want to know why the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) launched this prosecution, given the Cannings criteria and the fact that 12 experts couldn’t agree on anything,” he said.

Batt is also concerned that Mr Justice Pitchers, the judge in the Gay case, sat alongside Judge when he issued the new guidelines.

Another unusual aspect of the case was that murder charges against the Gays, based on a post-mortem finding that their adoptive son had died from “blunt force trauma”, were dropped in mid-trial when it became apparent that bruising had probably occurred in hospital.

Dr Peter Acland, a Home Office pathologist for the Gays’ defence, has said their imprisonment was a miscarriage of justice.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• The Times celebrates its 225th birthday
• Heath discussed IMF loan during 1974 crisis
• Britain’s loneliest café opens for business