In the police statement and the CVS Paper Southall claimed the baby was shaken prior to the arm being allegedly deliberately broken by mother - they didn't go in, isn't shaken baby a form of child abuse?
UK News Electronic Telegraph
Tuesday 28 October 1997
Issue 887
Ward spy cameras watched as mother broke baby's arm
By Maurice Weaver
MEDICAL staff who ran covert video surveillance in hospital wards to catch parents suspected of abusing their children told yesterday of one mother who deliberately broke her baby girl's arm.
The six-month-old child had been referred because her blood oxygen level had dropped abnormally, Dr Keith Prowse, medical director at the North Staffordshire Hospital, told a news conference. He said: "On her first night she was monitored most of the night. The mother came in and out of the room and there were some signs, such as poking and pushing the child, but no actual confirmed abuse.
"At first we thought she was going to suffocate the child but suddenly she grabbed her arm and broke it. The child was obviously in horrendous pain and immediately staff were alerted and sent in.
"As soon as the staff entered the room the mother became very loving and doting again and couldn't understand why the child was in so much pain."
In another case a mother was recorded trying to suffocate her baby using cling film. Both women were reported to the police and prosecuted for cruelty. The hospital confirmed that it operated video surveillance in secret for eight years until one woman became suspicious of the medical authorities' involvement in her prosecution. Then the decision was taken to go public.
Prof David Southall, the consultant paediatrician who is the co-author of the report which is due to be published next Monday, told the news conference that the cameras had caught "the most disturbing thing possible to see".
The victims were aged from two months to 44 months. The surveillance led to 38 care orders being made and 33 parents were prosecuted. The cameras recorded deliberate attempts to suffocate 30 children, the case of the broken arm and two poisonings. Prof Southall said the parents came from across the social spectrum and invariably put on public shows of affection to their children.
The report, by Prof Southall and Dr Martin Samuels, states that the 39 children under surveillance had a total of 41 siblings, 12 of whom had previously died unexpectedly. Eleven of these deaths were classified as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome but, following the CVS programme, four parents admitted suffocating eight of them.
Prof Southall said that, while by no means all such sudden infant deaths resulted from child abuse, the report indicated that the issue should be considered as part of routine.
Yesterday a mother accused - but subsequently cleared - of harming her three-year-old son spoke out against the dangers of video surveillance of babies thought to be at risk of harm. Nicola McCombe, from West Kirby, Merseyside, said that the babies of some mothers accused of harming their children had been found to have breathing difficulties or physical defects which accounted for their condition.
She said: "Families have been disrupted and babies and small children taken from their mothers because of Prof Southall's refusal to accept that he could have been mistaken."
