'Mixed emotions' as Clark is freed from prison

The lawyers who worked to secure the release of Sally Clark, the solicitor freed from jail last week after her conviction for killing her two baby boys was quashed, spoke this week of their 'mixed emotions' following the campaign for her release.

After three years in prison, Ms Clark returned home to her husband, City solicitor Steve Clark, and their surviving four-year-old son.

The Court of Appeal ruled that the prosecution failed to disclose to the jury a vital microbiology report which showed that the death of Harry, the couple's second son, could have been caused by a bacterial infection.

On her release, she thanked her legal team for working 'tirelessly' towards proving her innocence.

John Batt, the retired south London solicitor and family friend who led the legal team, spoke to the Gazette this week of the 'mixed emotions' he experienced on Ms Clark's release.

'It is very difficult to celebrate a victory which involves the death of two babies and the wrongful imprisonment of their mother,' he said.

'The real emotion is a huge sense of relief that justice has finally been done.'

He spoke of the tremendous support the profession had offered Ms Clark, saying: 'The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal's decision [in May 2001] not to strike Sally from the roll was her first glimmer of hope.

Many solicitors and experts have worked on the case pro bono, although as an order for costs has been granted, some may now get paid for their work.'

The family's solicitor, Mike Mackey, senior partner of Manchester-based Burton Copeland, said the case was 'one of the most worrying miscarriages of justice of recent times'.

'The conviction rested entirely on the prosecution's decision, for whatever reason, not to pass on vital information which would certainly have resulted in a different verdict, and that is very worrying,' he said.

'I was also amazed at the tenacity with which the Crown pursued Sally, who was not a repeat armed robber or a renowned drug dealer but a suburban housewife.'

Mr Mackey also paid tribute to Mr Batt, who sifted through hundreds of medical reports and testimonies, and 'provided the case's bullets, which I then fired'.

Mr Mackey said he was looking forward to being able to spend time on other cases.

He said any claims for compensation could be made 'when the time is right', and Ms Clark's main priority was to adjust back to normality.

Speaking to the Gazette last July, Mr Clark credited Marilyn Stowe, chief assessor of the Law Society's family law panel and partner at Leeds-based firm Grahame Stowe Bateson, with forcing the hospital to release the key medical evidence in the case.

In that interview, Mr Clark said: 'We trusted the system, but it failed us.

I've always assumed that, on the whole, our criminal justice system is one of the best in the world.

It's not.

We were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the system got it horribly wrong.'

See Press round-up, page 13, and Editorial, page 15 (see [2003] Gazette, February 5)

Victoria MacCallum