Kathleen Folbigg: Medical evidence key in serial baby killer’s new inquiry
The inquiry that could clear the name of Kathleen Folbigg, Australia’s worst female serial child killer, is sitting for the first time on Friday.
Police & Courts
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Kathleen Folbigg has been found guilty of killing her four children time and time again with each failed appeal – but now an inquiry will put all that to one side.
Between now and November the various legal teams will pick through more than 8000 pages of evidence which could contain Folbigg’s key to freedom, or confirm her guilt once more. Convicted serial child killer Kathleen Folbigg’s latest bid at clearing her name is about to begin with the first of many hearings set down for Friday.
Folbigg is Australia’s worst female serial killer, serving 40 years for murdering three children and the manslaughter of her newborn.
An inquiry in 2019, conducted by the Honourable Reginald Blanch AM, QC, concluded there was no reasonable doubt as to Folbigg’s guilt.
But a second inquiry, which sat for the first time on Friday, will come at the case with fresh eyes focused almost entirely on new medical evidence.
“At this point this inquiry is not an appeal against conviction, nor of the merits or other review of the Blanch Inquiry,” former NSW Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Bathurst QC said on Friday.
“It is incumbent on me to make up my own mind.”
The inquiry will focus on advancements in medial science specifically around a genetic mutation known as CALM2 found in two of Folbigg’s daughters.
The inquiry heard a study and reports, by a group of scientists whose findings will form the central evidence, had been completed since the Blanch Inquiry about the impact of CALM2 mutation on “inherited cardiac arrhythmias”.
Folbigg’s legal team and supporters, citing the reports, had called for a pardon saying her children had a natural cause of death.
The inquiry will focus on the medical evidence when it returns in November.
But delays appear to already be hitting the complex case as the publicly funded Legal Aid refuses to respond to Folbigg’s request for financial backing for her lawyers.
Mr Bathurst urged Legal Aid to advance the matter as it was in the interest of everyone to have the inquiry proceed without delay.
Folbigg has spent two decades behind bars, convicted of murdering three of her children, Patrick, Sarah and Laura, and the manslaughter of Caleb – her firstborn son.
She has always maintained her innocence and a persistent cohort of supporters have long claimed new medical evidence proves genetic mutations could have played a role in the tragic deaths of the children.
That‘s because two of the children were found to be carrying a genetic mutation, CALM2, which can be linked to cardiac problems following her trial.
NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman, in mid-May, announced a second inquiry into her conviction saying the medical evidence “reaches the necessary threshold for some kind of intervention”.
The first directions hearing, which will lay the groundwork for the coming inquiry, will be held in Sydney on Friday.
Recently retired NSW Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Bathurst QC will oversee the inquiry and decide its scope.
It will be the second inquiry into Folbigg‘s convictions after the first, in 2019, concluded there was not “any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of Kathleen Megan Folbigg for the offences for which she was convicted”.
Ominous diary entries, penned by Folbigg around the time of her children‘s deaths, were aired during that inquiry and fervently debated by the legal teams.
Folbigg wrote, in an entry, that one child “left with a little help”. In another entry she said she feared for the other babies.
“What scares me the most is being alone with the baby,” she wrote.
“How do I overcome that, defeat that,” she wrote.
Her barrister suggested Folbigg felt responsible for the things she didn’t do to help, rather than guilty for the things she did to kill the children.
The Court of Criminal Appeal, last year, refused to overrule the inquiry.
The first inquiry knew of the CALM2 genetic evidence but no complete study, at the time, had been completed.
That has now changed.
A petition, signed by almost 100 medical experts, had called for Folbigg to be pardoned in the wake of the study.
Mr Speakman denied the request saying the second inquiry would provide a transparent and public process unlike a pardon.
“Ms Folbigg has already had numerous attempts to clear her name, this new evidence, and its widespread endorsement by scientists, cannot be ignored,” he said.
“Only a transparent, public and fair inquiry can provide a just resolution of the doubt or question raised by that new evidence.”
If the second inquiry finds a reasonable doubt Folbigg‘s case will likely end up before the Court of Criminal Appeal yet again.
Otherwise she will continue to serve her time in prison at least until her earliest parole in 2028.
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