Experts demand pardon for Kathleen Folbigg, jailed for killing her 4 children
Seventy-six of Australia’s most respected doctors, scientists want freedom for Kathleen Folbigg, jailed for killing her four babies, citing fresh medical evidence.
Seventy-six of Australia’s most respected doctors and scientists have put their names to a petition demanding a pardon for Kathleen Folbigg, the mother serving a 30-year jail term for killing four of her infant children.
The eminent researchers, including two Nobel laureates and several Australians of the Year, say new medical evidence about a mutant gene carried by two of the Folbigg children creates a “strong presumption’’ they died from natural causes.
Joined by a further 14 international experts, they have called on NSW Governor Margaret Beazley to pardon Folbigg and immediately release her from jail, calling for an end to the “miscarriage of justice’’ they say the 53-year-old has suffered.
Among those to put their names to the petition are president of the Australian Academy of Science John Shine, Nobel laureate Peter Doherty, a former Australian of the Year, and Tasmania-born emeritus professor Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the Nobel Prize in 2009.
Fiona Stanley, a distinguished research professor and 2003 Australian of the Year, professor Ian Frazer, 2006 Australian of the Year, co-inventor of the vaccine that prevents cervical cancer, and former chief scientist professor Ian Chubb have also signed the scientific consensus statement.
“The executive prerogative of mercy is designed to deal with failures of the justice system such as this one,’’ a letter accompanying the petition and obtained by News Corp Australia states.
“It is incumbent on the Governor to exercise her power to stop the ongoing miscarriage of justice suffered by Ms Folbigg.
“Not to do so is to continue to deny Ms Folbigg basic human rights and to decrease faith in the NSW justice system.
“Ms Folbigg’s case also establishes a dangerous precedent as it means that cogent medical and scientific evidence can simply be ignored in preference to subjective interpretations of circumstantial evidence.’’
Folbigg, from the Hunter Valley, was convicted in 2003 of smothering her four children — Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura — over a 10-year period from February 1989 to March 1999. She has always maintained her innocence and her convictions, based largely on entries she wrote in her diary, have been upheld through numerous legal challenges.
The scientific experts were always concerned about the case, and genomic work undertaken by an international team of experts including from the Australian National University in Canberra uncovered new information that experts say casts significant doubt on her convictions.
ANU researchers Carola Vinuesa and Todor Arsov first discovered the gene mutation after sequencing the genome of Folbigg in 2018.
“Mutations in this gene are one of the best recognised causes of sudden death in infancy and childhood,’’ the petition, also signed by Professor Vinuesa and Dr Arsov, notes.
“The medical evidence that now exists … creates a strong presumption that the Folbigg children died of natural causes.’’
Fourteen international experts from Denmark, Italy, Israel, the UK and the US have joined the 76 Australian scientists and doctors who come from some of the most prestigious scientific institutions in Australia, including the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, to lobby for Folbigg’s release.
A letter lodged from Folbigg’s legal team states there is no medical evidence to support the prosecution’s theory that Folbigg smothered her children.
The NSW Court of Appeal is considering Folbigg’s latest bid to clear her name by overturning the results of a 2019 judicial inquiry that found no reasonable doubt as to Folbigg’s convictions.
As part of the inquiry, scientists sequenced the genomes from the Folbigg children and discovered the mutation in Laura and Sarah, but the mutation’s likely lethal nature was not confirmed until after the inquiry was completed.
The scientific experts endorsing the petition are now arguing that the Governor should intervene immediately to pardon Folbigg, as legal appeals will take years to finalise.
“The Governor should have no doubt that the case against Kathleen Folbigg is entirely circumstantial,’’ they argue.
“It is based on the proposition that the likelihood of four children from one family dying of natural causes is so unlikely as to be virtually impossible. This flawed logic, otherwise known as ‘Meadow’s Law’, permeated the trial and the 2019 inquiry.
“It resulted in medical evidence being rejected in favour of inculpatory interpretations of Ms Folbigg’s vague journal entries, which contained no admissions of guilt.
“Based on evidence presented to the inquiry and the fresh scientific evidence obtained by the international group of experts that studied the CALM2 mutation, a reasonable person should have doubt about Ms Folbigg killing her four children. Deciding otherwise rejects medical science and the law that sets the standard of proof.
“Ms Folbigg should be granted a pardon based on the significant positive evidence of natural causes of death for Caleb, Patrick, Sarah, and Laura.
“Ms Folbigg has suffered and continues to suffer emotional and psychological trauma and physical abuse in custody. She has endured the death of her four children and has been wrongfully incarcerated because the justice system has failed her. We the undersigned seek her immediate pardon and release from jail.”
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