Mum won't see son for 18 years

SPECIAL REPORT: A distraught mother has lost her battle to keep her son after a court ruled she suffers from the discredited medical condition Munchausen's by proxy. Here is her story. Video

THE happy baby in the photo has dimpled cheeks, glowing skin and scrumptious fat thighs that scream good health.

This is the child whose mother has been accused of a now-discredited disorder and labelled as a dangerous person intent on harming her own children to gain attention.

They are also photos of life on the run. The child, born on December 12, 2003, had been kept in hiding by his mother to stop the authorities taking him away, like they have with three of her previous children.

They believe she suffers Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, a scientifically dubious condition, shrouded in controversy, that was levelled at her 15 years ago.

"I've been branded,'' the woman said last week, distraught after losing her appeal to regain custody of the boy they took away last year.

In October, the Department of Community Services tracked the mother down to Moree and took the child, now five, into custody. He was placed in foster care, where he remains today.

Despite a barrage of tests performed on the boy, from blood and urine tests to anal swabs and a hair analysis, there is not a shred of evidence this child has been harmed by anyone.

But he is now officially a ward of the State, and his mother has lost her battle to keep him after an appeal in the Children's Court failed last week.

"I'm really struggling with the fact I have made it harder for him,'' Fiona said. ``Perhaps if they'd taken him at birth, he wouldn't miss me so much.''

The child does miss his mother very much, according to Department of Community Services contact reports.

"He just tells me he wants to come home with me each time I see him,'' Fiona says of her once-a-week, one-hour contact visit.

She is either a very good liar, or an injustice of mammoth proportions has been perpetrated not only against her, but against all four of her children.

"There is not a doubt in my mind she is innocent,'' says medical anthropologist Dr Helen Hayward Brown, who completed a PhD on Munchausen's syndrome by proxy (MSBP), an "illness'' that has led to the removal of many Australian children.

Fiona's case was one of 31 in Australia Dr Hayward Brown studied.

"I think the judgment shows shocking ignorance of the recent developments overseas in relation to the discrediting of MSBP,'' Dr Hayward Brown said after Tuesday's decision.

Munchausen's syndrome by proxy was named by leading British pediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadows in the 1970s. The disorder, he argued, compelled a mother to harm, poison or even kill her children, just to gain attention for herself.

Over the past three decades, Professor Meadows' evidence has put thousands of children into foster homes in Britain.

His theory - "One death is a tragedy, two is suspicious, three is murder'' - helped to wrongfully jail three British mothers.

All three convictions were quashed and Meadows was temporarily struck off the medical register.

Sally Clarke - whose two sons died of SIDS, not infanticide, as was alleged - was found dead in her home in 2007.

Despite being pardoned, she never recovered from her crippling grief and died of alcohol-related illness.

Back in 1993, Fiona was just 17 and the mother of a healthy toddler who has remained in her care without incident.

Her second child, born prematurely, had difficulty putting on weight and keeping milk down. He failed to thrive.

The child had severe reflux and sleep apnea, and she brought him to hospital time and time again.

Such behaviour could be interpreted as that of a caring mother, but for believers of MSBP, it's a dead give-away. A pediatrician accused her of MSBP.

"I already had a happy, fat little 20-month-old at home,'' Fiona said of her first-born son.

"Why would I feed one baby and not the other?'' she asked the doctor, only to be told: "Maybe you wanted a girl.''

Lord Frederick Howe, the British Opposition health spokesman, is a vocal critic of the disorder claims.

"It is one of the most pernicious, ill-founded theories to have gained currency in child care and social services in the past decade,'' he said.

"I've heard of diagnoses taking place by email, on the strength of a few pieces of paper, with no further questions asked.''

And that is what happened to Fiona. After viewing her file in Britain, and without ever meeting her, Professor Meadows confirmed she had MSBP.

Not only was the child taken from her and put into foster care, the tag has stuck and devastated her life.

"There is not a shred of evidence that she ever harmed any of her children,'' Dr Hayward Brown.

Fiona admits the original report "reads badly''.

A doctor accused her of sticking her fingers down the baby's throat to make him vomit. She was also accused of withholding food.

"The only thing I did wrong was treat the premature baby like a normal full-term boy, which was all I knew,'' she said.

"Verbally, they tried to say she poisoned the child at one point, while he was in hospital, but the only written report says they couldn't find any evidence of that,'' Dr Hayward-Brown said.

In court in 1994, a magistrate found there was no evidence of MSBP. A year later, the Department of Community Services successfully appealed to the District Court.

Two more subsequent children were taken off her on the basis of the original diagnosis. By 2003, she knew the only way to keep her child was to go into hiding.

"I just know they would take him away from me, like they have the others, and I won't see him again,'' she says on a video she made, newborn protectively nestled to her chest. She sent the tape to me at my request, and it aired on national TV.

There were people in medical authority who knew of Fiona's pregnancy, of her past and who believed in her innocence.

One source close to the case, who asked not to be named, said: "The bottom line is that the person who put this tag on her, like what happened in Britain, put it on too freely - and it has stuck.

"A label was put on her at 17, and what assessments have been done since to measure her competence? It amounts to a degree of injustice.''

When Fiona's story broke last year, several medicos came out in support of her.

"The whole MSBP phenomenon smacks of a witch-hunt,'' Wollongong University forensic psychiatrist Dr Robert Kaplan said.

"I am at a loss to see how something with no scientific basis can be used to justify the removal of a child.''

Dr Michael Barratt, a pathologist and a foster parent of 25 years' experience, also came out in support of Fiona, whom he has met in the past.

"She presents as nothing but a competent mother,'' Dr Barratt said.

He called for a royal commission into the removal of children on the grounds of MSBP, believed to have affected as many as 70 Australian families.

In the Children's Court last week, magistrate Paul Mulroney conceded the boy had a strong attachment to his mother but refused to hear new evidence on the original diagnosis of MSBP and admonished Fiona for not accepting her condition.

"I will not admit to what I have not done. I am not in denial, I am innocent,'' Fiona said afterwards.
DoCS refused to comment on the particulars of the case, but said in a statement: "Community Services child protection case workers make very difficult decisions and must weigh up whether it is better to leave a child with his or her natural parents or take them into care.

"Those decisions must then be justified before independent courts, which determine whether the evidence was sufficient to determine that the child was in need of care and protection.

"It is only if Community Services staff consider the child is at greater risk of harm by staying with his or her natural parents they will apply to the court to have the child taken into care.''

Last week, DoCS officers told the boy he would be staying in foster care for a long time because his mother "wasn't well enough to care for him''.

An officer related the conversation with the boy to Fiona. "They told me he said: "I just want to live with mummy forever','' she said, heartbroken.