Munchausen Syndrome / Part 210 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Munchausen syndrome is named after Baron von Munchausen who was in the German military and is noted for his extensive travels during which he told fantastic tales about his imaginary exploits. In 1951 Richard Asher applied the Baron's name to people who reported into hospitals fabricating histories or symptoms of illnesses. His name now has become synonymous with a disorder in which a person intentionally fakes, simulates, worsens, or self-induces an injury or illness for the main purpose of being treated like a medical patient. A related condition, called Munchausen by proxy syndrome, refers to a caregiver who fakes symptoms by causing injury to someone else, often a child, and then wants to be with that person in a hospital or similar medical setting. It is the latter syndrome that was associated with Zabeth by someone who called in a report of concern to the MCFD. That person could have remained anonymous but didn't and in fact was identified in court when he gave testimony. He testified that during his professional training he had become acquainted with the term and its signs and in observing both Zabeth and her children, although unqualified professionally to make a definitive assessment, concluded Zabeth may be suffering this disorder. The timing of that call to MCFD approximate to the time of the Bayne infant's admission to and examination in Children's Hospital in Vancouver fueled the MCFD persuasion that the children needed protection. That combination of factors has led the Bayne family to the point today that the fate of their family rests with a provincial judge who will decide whether evidence presented by the Ministry lawyer proves that Paul and Zabeth are unfit parents who should never have custody of their children again in this life, or whether they should receive those children back immediately because the Ministry file folder containing three years of data on the Baynes is filled with subjective and biased hearsay rather than conclusive evidence.

Did Zabeth actually do what the syndrome scenario suggests? For one moment do you think that when her small daughter vomited, didn't eat, didn't poop, couldn't breath, didn't respond to stimuli and she took the child to hospitals and clinics in Hope, Chilliwack and Abbotsford over a period of days because no one was making an accurate diagnosis, that she was actually trying to gain attention for herself? Was she so needy that she inflicted injury to her child so that she would have reason to go the hospital and make a scene? No, Munchausen doesn't relate to her daughter's life in even the remotest sense. MCFD has never attested that it accepts the Munchausen possibility but it has not needed to because a medical diagnosis at Children's Hospital assessed the daughter's condition and speculated that it derived from non accidental trauma, that is an inflicted wounding. So regardless of the motivation, the implication is that mom did it, or dad did it. If the diagnosis of these symptoms was as conclusive as Children's Hospital or MCFD have maintained for almost three years, Paul and Zabeth would not have a hope. However, the ministry case in court has been paper thin. The Ministry lawyer's problem is that shaking a baby, as horrific an act as it is, is not the only probable cause for what the baby suffered in 2007 and has since then. That is why August 9-13 is so important as the Baynes present the alternative medical expert opinions that controvert the SBS diagnosis and which MCFD should have been diligent to pursue if quality investigation is a Ministry commitment.

It has been and it is an uphill battle for this mom to establish credibility which she lost involuntarily. She didn't need attention. She received it naturally and deservedly as a concert pianist and a music instructor. She is not now personally thriving on the media attention by which she hopes to regain her children, but rather is wilting under the discourtesies of insinuations and allegations. She is compelled to be a parent by proxy. She would much prefer to slip quietly away in the embrace of her three children, never to be heard from again.

See M.A.M.A.

For Love and For Justice / Part 110 / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

The Best that Jensen Can Do
Part One of Two parts


Even a thin case can have the appearance of overwhelming and intimidating evidentiary value when it has been back lighted by a legislated power to remove children and hold on to them until a judicial ruling comes down. It has a perception of strength.

In the case of Paul and Zabeth Bayne and three children, Kent, Baden and Bethany, that darkly sinister evidence becomes smaller and smaller as the lumens of the spotlight of truth and justice are ever intensified.

Finn Jensen may have developed his case believing that it was strong. He is certainly a competent lawyer. Even this far into the trial he may be convinced that he can win this. Sadly, that’s what litigation aims at, winning! If he is successful, what will MCFD win? It will win the entitlement to keep the children from Paul and Zabeth permanently. It will win the right to force each of these three children to live throughout their remaining childhood and youth with adoptive parents and never to see their birth parents again, until perhaps one day as adults they opt to make a connection that was severed willfully not by their parents or themselves but by a judge and a ministry of a government under which they live.

Here is the best that Finn Jensen, counsel for the Ministry of Children can do in court.

What kind of evidence do you consider the following testimony to be? Jensen called Mike and Elizabeth Hoffman, a pastor and wife from Hope, B.C. where the Baynes resided at the time that this story began. These couples were friends, sharing faith and worship. The Hoffmans reported their concerns to authorities in 2007 and confirmed that report with testimony in the current hearing in January 2010. Based upon what he had learned in seminary psychology classes Michael Hoffman wondered whether Zabeth was suffering from post-partum depression and that she may have Munchausen's syndrome by proxy, an uncommon condition in which a person harms another in order to gain attention. Consider the nature of this hypothesis that would imply she might do harm to her children. Is that evidence? Hoffman is not a medical or psychiatric doctor. He is not an expert nor does he purport to be. I too have taken seminary psychology. Seminary pysch informs you enough to state an opinion but doesn’t qualify you to make an assessment that is entered as evidence that a woman is a risk to her children. This is specially true now that medical professionals were told in court that they could not state an opinion as to whether the Bayne baby's injuries were accidental or non-accidental. It is Jensen's folly not Hoffman's that this was entered as evidence in a court of law. Hoffman surmised, speculated or supposed that Zabeth might be suffering from this condition, that's all and that is not evidence. Combine that with his wife's testimony and what does Jensen have? Elizabeth gave testimony that the two boys seemed small for their age and that the little girl started looking increasingly listless. That may be concern but is that evidence? The children’s doctor was more aware than they and was satisfied with the children’s health status. This testimony is in the court transcript and in a CBC online story.