Julie Ferris “My nightmare is over
now I can start rebuilding my life.”
More Articles...Julie
Ferris
She
has been to hell and back because these so-called
professionals failed to do their jobs properly. Julie Ferris enjoyed her first full day of freedom
yesterday and said: “My nightmare is over - now I can start
rebuilding my life.”
Then the 34 year-old
whispered softly: “I loved Hayley and Brandon so much. How
could they ever have believed that I killed my babies? Julie,
from Aston in Birmingham, was charged with the murder of her
two children in December, 1998. Nine month-old Hayley died in
1993 and doctors originally suspected that she was a tragic
victim of cot death.
But when Brandon also
passed away in May, 1998, at the age of eight months, the
loving mum was arrested. The case against her was eventually
heard at Birmingham Crown Court in June, 2000. But Julie, who
has learning difficulties, was forbidden from making a plea
and arguing her innocence because prosecutors claimed she had
a mental age of just six years old.
She was detained
indefinitely under the Mental Health Act after Professor Roy
Meadow, the now discredited paediatrician, testified that he
believed Julie had smothered her children. The Sunday Mercury
became the first newspaper in Britain to raise doubts about
the case in March, 2001, when we launched a campaign to win
Julie a retrial. We had discovered how her children could have
been victims of a rare form of epilepsy, which runs in the
Ferris family. We also traced new witnesses who said that they
had seen the children having fits before their deaths - while
Julie was out of the room.
CONTROVERSIAL
paediatrician
BBC Profile:
Sir Roy Meadow
Our investigation led to
new solicitors being appointed in the case and in the summer
of 2002 Julie was finally released on bail pending a fresh
trail due to take place in November this year. But on Friday
afternoon her solicitor received a letter from the Crown
Prosecution Service stating that all charges had been dropped.
She was finally a free woman - judged innocent at last.
Now the tragic mum could
win a huge compensation pay-out for the four terrible years
she suffered in custody. Last night Julie, who has had the
names of her babies tattooed on her arm, said: “Prof Meadow is
the one who should be sectioned. I was detained under the
Mental Health Act and spent four years in bail hostels, secure
units, hospitals and in prison. I was dragged around the
country, miles away from my family. I was branded a
child-killer and beaten up by other inmates because of what he
said.
At one stage the
authorities even told me I would never be free unless I agreed
to be sterilised to stop me having more children. I refused
because I knew I was innocent. Julie, one of 13 children,
lives with her 72 year-old mum Mary, who has stood by her
throughout her ordeal.
Her sister Betty, 50, who
has led the campaign to clear Julie’s name with the help of
the Sunday Mercury, said: “This has split our family. People
trust what doctors and police officers say, but I always knew
how much Julie loved those kids and I knew she would never
harm them. She has been to hell and back because these
so-called professionals failed to do their jobs properly. They
have scarred my sister’s life forever. She had to be put on
24-hour suicide watch while she was in prison because she was
so traumatised. She has tried to kill herself on several
occasions.
We were never going to give
up until Julie’s name was cleared. Thank God it finally has
been. But we’ve got a lot of work to do to help her get fully
back on track with her life. Julie had taken Hayley and
Brandon to hospital on a number of occasions after they both
suffered convulsions. A post-mortem examination into Hayley’s
death found she that had choked on her own vomit from a fit.
But pathologists also noted that blood was found in her
nostrils, which subsequently raised suspicions and an open
verdict was recorded at an inquest.
No full inquest has ever
been held into the cause of Brandon’s death. Yet neither baby
had ever appeared on a social services register of children at
risk and it was only after Brandon died that Julie was
arrested. Julie was initially charged with double murder and
remanded in custody. The charges were later reduced to
manslaughter. A jury at Birmingham Crown Court was told that
she had ‘severe intellectual limitations’ that meant she
‘could not participate in any meaningful sense in a trial’.
Nonetheless, the jury was
asked to determine whether Julie had killed her children in a
sub-sequent trial of the facts. They decided that she had. She
was made the subject of a hospital order and detained
indefinitely. Evidence given by Sir Roy Meadow is said to have
heavily influenced their decision. The former president of the
British Association of Paediatrics testified that Hayley and
Brandon showed classic signs of being smothered. Asked what
the chances were of Brandon dying from an epileptic fit five
years after Hayley died the same way, Meadow said: “It is very
unlikely.”
Testimonies from the
so-called ‘expert witness’ also helped secure the convictions
of innocent mums Sally Clark and Angela Cannings. Both have
subsequently been cleared of killing their children. The
collapse of the cases and criticisms of Meadow’s evidence by
the Court of Appeal recently led the Attorney General to order
a review of 258 child-protection cases he had been involved
in.
The retired 71 year-old is
also being investigated by General Medical Council. Last night
Julie recalled her ‘trial’. “I couldn’t believe what was going
on,” she said. They were talking about me as if I wasn’t there
and there was nothing I could do. I was so upset that Brandon
and Hayley had died and they were trying to say it was my
fault.
The Portia Campaign, which
fights for victims of injustice, said Julie never got a fair
hearing because she was banned from giving evidence due to the
ruling on her mental age. Following the Sunday Mercury’s
‘Justice For Julie’ campaign, she won a judicial review of her
case in London’s Court of Appeal.
Her new trial was due to
take place in November but on Friday she received the phone
call she thought would never come from her solicitor Andrew
Wesley. He told the Sunday Mercury: “I have received a letter
from the Crown Prosecution Service saying that, following a
review, they are not going to pursue Julie’s case. There will
now be one final court hearing to say officially that they
will no longer be seeking to say that she was responsible for
the deaths of her two children. Julie is looking forward to
starting her life all over again.
I can’t believe this battle
is over, but I know we haven’t reached the end of the road
yet, she said. There are still many questions that need
answering. Even on Friday, after I got the call from my
solicitor, someone shouted ‘child-killer’ from a car as it
drove past my house.
“But I and the people who
really know me have always known the truth.”
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