Jailed mum Kathleen Folbigg asks NSW Attorney-General to rule on pardon

A year after 150 scientists and ­science advocates called for the pardon of Kathleen Folbigg, the convicted child killer is still languishing in jail.

A year after 150 scientists and ­science advocates, including two Australian Nobel laureates, called for the pardon and release from jail of Kathleen Folbigg, the convicted child killer has expressed disappointment that the NSW Attorney-General has not reached a decision on ­her case.

In a statement from her prison cell, Folbigg said: “I am an innocent woman, and a mother who has lost her family under heartbreaking circumstances, still sitting in a maximum-security prison after nearly 19 long and challenging years.”

Folbigg, in 2003, was found guilty of smothering all four of her children.

All appeals against her convictions have so far failed.

In a statement obtained by The Weekend Australian, she said she was “saddened and ­extremely disappointed” that ­Attorney-General Mark Speakman had still not reached a decision on a petition lodged on her behalf in March last year, which was endorsed by 150 scientists and science advocates, including Nobel prize-winners Elizabeth Blackburn and Peter Doherty.

The petition, strongly backed by the Australian Academy of Science, said fresh genetic evidence in the case showed that Folbigg had been wrongfully ­incarcerated because the justice system “failed her”.

In 2020, a team of scientists concluded that a genetic ­mutation known as CALM2 G114R was the likely cause of death for Folbigg’s two daughters, Sarah and Laura.

Kathleen Folbigg

NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman

On Friday, a third Nobel laureate, ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt, co-signed a letter that the academy sent to Mr Speakman.

The letter reads: “New scientific evidence explaining the deaths of her children now makes it patently clear that all four children died of natural causes, placing her innocence beyond reasonable doubt … it is time that the NSW legal system also ­accepts that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.”

Mr Speakman has defended the time it has taken to consider the petition, and has turned down an offer by the academy to set up a panel of genetic experts to assist him in reaching his decision.

He announced this week that it would be “inappropriate and ­unfair to the petitioner for the ­Attorney-General to consider material provided by someone other than the petitioner or their legal representative or to hold private consultations with other members of the public”.

The academy in its letter says: “This offer still stands and is supported by Ms Folbigg and her legal representatives.”

Folbigg, in her statement, says: “I’m frustrated because nobody appears to be listening to any of the well-educated and highly ­experienced scientists, linguists, and medical and mental health experts involved in this case. This is just devastating and astonishing to me.”

Folbigg’s lawyers have now ­recruited high-profile former commonwealth solicitor-general David Bennett QC to help take the case forward.

And in a further significant ­development, her legal team has this week asked NSW coroner Teresa O’Sullivan to hold a coronial ­inquest into the deaths of all four children.