PIVOT LEGAL SOCIETY / Part 264 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

Consider these thoughts please.

Since posting this today, a couple of comments by others cause me to ask those of you reading this, whether you have had helpful or disappointing experiences with your appeal to Pivot.

"Outreach: At Pivot, we know that the fight for social justice can’t stop at the courthouse – real change happens when people come together to get things done. There are all kinds of ways that you can spread the word and mobilize others where you live, work, or go to school.”
"Act Now!: When important things are happening, speak out. Government and policy makers need to be held accountable and forced to act. Take action today! Send a postcard here.”
"Join the Movement: Join the growing numbers of people who are standing up for progressive social change! Get information about the issues that matter to you, keep up-to-date on breaking developments and events, and create ways to make change happen.”
"Events: Get together, celebrate successes, have fun, and build community. Whether you come out to one of our annual events or host your own party for Pivot, events are a great way to meet new people, get your friends involved, and become part of the movement for social change.”
"Donate: Your contribution puts power behind our campaigns and strengthens our hand giving us the necessary resources to overcome injustice and create a community of fairness and equality. You don’t have to be a high roller to make change happen – each contribution goes a long way.”

I surmise that most of you respond favourably to those sentiments. In light of the communications within the forum of this blog, you might be saying, “I want to be part of an effective voice for fairness and justice and equity.” All of the above statements were made on the home web page of PIVOT. I am not specifically promoting Pivot but I am agreeing with the convictions I read here.
It is worth your while to spend some time on the online pages of this organization to increase your own awareness and perhaps to generate some creative juices with regard to the changes that are required to turn our present Ministry of Children into one that deserves citation rather than complaint. Perhaps as well, a community of compassion can emerge for so many of you.

This excerpt is quoted from its website.

• Pivot Legal Society is a non-profit legal advocacy organization located in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
• Pivot's mandate is to take a strategic approach to social change, using the law to address the root causes that undermine the quality of life of those most on the margins. We believe that everyone, regardless of income, benefits from a healthy and inclusive community where values such as opportunity, respect and equality are strongly rooted in the law.
• The basic concept underlying Pivot's name and mission is that a critical pressure point of social change is to be found at the lower edge of legal and social boundaries. By systematically challenging the attitudes and institutions of power that enable marginalization, Pivot strives to move us towards a more tolerant, inclusive and compassionate society.
• By aggressively advancing the interests and defending the legal entitlements of the most disenfranchised, Pivot aims for a "trickle-up" effect of respect and acceptance that will ultimately benefit all.

Free Legal Help may be available at Pivot - This page informs you of the possibilities.

"The best test of a civilized society is the way in which it treats its most vulnerable and weakest members." Mahatma Gandhi

INTERPRETING THE PRECEDING REPORTS / Part 237 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

So here comes the critical determination after four days of online medical reports.

• This child was in very serious medical crisis in September 2007.
• By reviewing the initial test results and medical reports these past four days, my purpose was to underscore Baby B's condition which resulted in the MCFD intervention in her life.
• What the original and vital diagnosis of shaken baby did not consider were the alternate explanations that were provided yesterday by the reports from ten other experts who reject the shaken baby diagnosis for this specific child.
• It was not the Children's Hospital or the Ministry of Children (MCFD) that sought any alternate opinions to insure that SBS was the accurate diagnosis. MCFD was content that the SBS verdict was the right one. It was content even in the face of conflicting expert opinions.
• An SBS conclusion is conjoined with a 'non accidental injury' designation and therefore responsibility for an inflicted injury must be assessed to the person(s) most likely implicated. In the Bayne case, probability pointed to Zabeth and/or Paul, the biological parents. This would need to be substantiated of course, but how and with what?
• While this was investigated, the children were removed from their parental home.
• The RCMP ruled that there was insufficient evidence to charge Paul and Zabeth.
• When the MCFD regional Director persisted in its custody and care of the children, his decisions were motivated by a child's injuries but they were not associated with evidence and proof of parental responsibility for the injury to the injured child and absolutely no evidence existed to support the continued custody of the two sibling brothers.
• Nevertheless on the strength of suspicion, MCFD continued to withhold the rights of three children to live with their birth parents. Maintaining suspicion, MCFD pressed the Baynes to admit to harming their child until it became evident that the Baynes would assert their innocence unconditionally. Without an admission of responsibility, the Director and his crew would not consider returning the children and further have in documents alleged that the Baynes are uncooperative.In fact that is untrue. They have instead been bravely assertive and understandably concerned that all of their personal and family rights and freedoms are not ignored.
• The shaken baby diagnosis is the substantive basis for MCFD action and now the Continuing Care Order application. A most recent MCFD affidavit states “The Director is seeking a Continuing Care Order, relying upon the diagnosis of the Children's Hospital that B.B. sustained a non-accidental trauma resulting in brain hemorrhaging, a unilateral retinal hemorrhage and a fractured femoral bone.” The hemorrhaging is understood. The reference to fractured femur is intended to infer an intentional injury. Even that was an inaccurate statement as Dr. Culman's report indicated that “The lateral view of the right elbow shows what appears as subperiostal new bone but is in fact cortical tunnelling because there is no new bone on the frontal view. “

THE CRITICAL DETERMINATION: NO CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE EXISTS THAT THIS CHILD WAS WILLFULLY HARMED BY AN ADULT AND SPECIFICALLY BY PAUL AND/OR ZABETH BAYNE. NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER EXISTS THAT THIS CHILD'S SIBLING BROTHERS HAVE BEEN HARMED. THE ACKNOWLEDGED INJURIES TO THIS CHILD DO NOT INDICATE CATEGORICALLY A NON ACCIDENTAL ORIGIN. IF REASONABLE DOUBT PERMITS THE RELEASE OF SOMEONE ACCUSED OF AN AGREGIOUS CRIMINAL ACT, THE REASONABLE DOUBT CONCURRENT WITH NON-CONCLUSIVE GROUNDS IN THE BAYNE CASE DEMANDS THE RELEASE OF THE THREE CHILDREN TO THEIR BIRTH PARENTS.

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.

POISON - INTERVENTION IS NECESSARY / Part 177

It may be that we are nearing a point in the Bayne family case life when an intervention will be required to keep this family alive.

Poison kills.
Poison is not exclusively chemical.
Misrepresentation serves as a poison. Its accumulative affect strikes at the heart.
Misrepresentation doesn’t need to be deliberate dishonesty. It may not be intentional falsehood. It may be unprofessional prejudgement. It may be a bias. It could be a distortion of facts. It could be a parody of truth. Yet it’s as potent a poison as a lie. It effectively destroys the tissue of reputation and trust.

With regard to the Baynes, the Ministry of Children in the Fraser Region has processed toxic reports based upon documents from B.C. Children’s Hospital and countless social workers’ interviews, and notes from and conversations with acquaintances and foster parents and visitation supervisors. Without suitable challenges from someone these reports become damning because they do not tell the entire truth about Paul and Zabeth, about their children, about events, about MCFD communication, interaction, regulation, visitation supervision. These recklessly gathered and feckless reports are like a poison. They are lethal.

If the poison is coupled with unassailable control over parents' children, then an intervention becomes necessary as it is with the Bayne family right now. Perhaps this Spring a Court Judge’s ruling will be the effective antidote to this toxicant in their case.

Poison within the child welfare system harms the reputation of the entire BC Ministry of Children. This Bayne Family case evidences that. Paul and Zabeth Bayne and the many, many others whose lives and families have been unnecessarily fragmented by graceless, stonyhearted social work in B.C. need the assistance of the Minister of Children (Polak) and the Deputy Minister (Dutoit). And if not them, then some others in Victoria. I understand protocol. It would be an extraordinary step for the Ministry’s principle executives to involve themselves in an intervention in an individual case. It could have repercussions. The Ministers would certainly be criticized. But by such compassionate action, lives have been saved in the past. A fact-finding, integrity driven Ministry intervention can remove the poison. It is courageous people who write the history of societal reform, and give birth to true transformation and bequeath enduring, treasured legacies. Someone(s) please step up.

Use of poison in child protection, however it is derived, must be identified and tagged as not merely harmful but unlawful.

For Love and For Justice / Part 123 / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

COURT NEWS UPDATE

AN UNEXPECTED ADJOURNMENT, FRIDAY February 26, 2010
Proceedings were interrupted as counsel for MCFD, Mr. Finn Jensen received news and then asked the Defense and the Court to agree to an adjournment for the day because of a grave tragedy, the sudden death of one of Mr. Jensen’s clients. He desired to make himself available to tend the needs of the family of the deceased.

SYMPATHY

Some GPS readers may be familiar with this grieving family as you read this note. Paul and Zabeth Bayne wish to express their own deepest sympathy for the family’s loss and pain at this time of heartbreak. They say, “Our prayer and thoughts are with you.”

BRIEF FRIDAY COURT BUSINESS CONDUCTED BEFORE ADJOURNMENT
Kimberly Grey was called back to the stand regarding a disclosure item that she had to produce. The Baynes had expressed some concern to the Ministry about their two sons during care at one of the homes to which they were assigned. It was Ms. Grey’s responsibility to investigate this. She did visit the home, but was unable to interview the person directly named by their son and she was satisfied by information received from another person at the home. Ms. Grey made no further attempts to investigate the concern or to verify the information received. and noted in her completed file that she considered the matter closed. That was the end of that matter on Friday.

Loren Humeny was also brought to the stand in order to produce the document he received from a now disclosed collateral (formerly anonymous witness). The disclosed document had been addressed personally to Paul and Zabeth Bayne and was among documents they intended to send to MCFD. Loren Humeny claimed he received this document on a date that would appear to be two to three days prior to the Baynes trying to submit it to the Ministry. Nothing more is known or can be said about this now and the defense has not closed this matter.

FUTURE COURT DATES
Friday concluded with no dates set for continuation of this trial. Both sides wait for the Judicial Case Manager to contact the lawyers with a date for a conference with Judge Crabtree in order to select further trail dates. They may require two more weeks for further evidence presentation. It is the defence (Baynes) turn to present. This blog will notify readers of dates when they are certain.

BAYNES SAY THANK YOU

A special thank you to everyone that has been able to attend the hearing dates so far. Your presence has been a much appreciated support during this trying time.

For Love and For Justice / Part 111 / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

The Best that Jensen Can Do
Part Two of Two Parts

Following the Hoffman testimonies, Finn Jensen called upon his heavyweights for testimony, Adrienne Glen and Dr. Margaret Colbourne. They represent the concern that arose within the child protection unit of Vancouver Children’s Hospital when Bethany was admitted, examined, tested and treated. Each of these women was doing a specific job to the best of her ability and each I must assume fulfilled her role with integrity. Adrienne, an intake social worker at the hospital, visited and conversed with the Bayne family and medical professionals and wrote timely reports and in the process expressed her opinions, sometimes about the Baynes. Dr. Colbourne, very connected to the Shaken Baby Syndrome theory through involvement with an international SBS organization and committed to the understanding that the presence of the diagnostic triad of (1) retinal bleeding, (2) bleeding in the protective layer of the brain, and (3) brain swelling, is predictably indicative of SBS, made that SBS diagnosis with Bethany in 2007. The testimony of each woman in court affirmed her report from 2007 and each report potentially discredited Paul and Zabeth as normal, concerned and loving parents and implied their responsibility in harming their child and by which Finn Jensen hoped to convince the judge that MCFD has acted from the outset upon accurate and trustworthy data. The snag for Jensen is that Counsel Doug Christie was able to cross examine both witnesses and consequently weaken the import of their testimonies. Glen was compelled to admit that her recorded perceptions that the Baynes spent relatively little time with Bethany in hospital were inaccurate and that they had in fact spent many daily hours in hospital with Bethany. Colbourne’s qualifications as an expert were questioned with regard to an absence of biomechanical training needed to ascertain whether or not Bethany's injuries were accidental or non accidental. Theoretically, Colbourne's SBS diagnosis would benefit greatly from the next witness.

Now came Jensen’s super heavyweight Shaken Baby witness, Dr. Randall Alexander from Florida, who has testified in over 300 similar cases and who was here to assure the court that unquestionably, Bethany’s injuries were the result of shaking. His towering persona began to dissolve when he was forced to admit that he wrote his SBS report on Bethany months before seeing the actual film work on Bethany a day before entering the witness box. He had to admit that he had not read Bethany’s birth records, reports concerning Bethany from area hospitals, or any of the ten experts' reports on Bethany that countered his SBS claim. It was clear to the judge that Alexander’s report had been written with incomplete medical information. What kind of evidence is this?

Most recently Social Worker Loren Humeny testified and was cross examined for almost the equivalent of four days. Under cross-examination Humeny was asked whether the risk assessment was written when he was in an adversarial position with the Baynes, because the MCFD was already seeking a continuing care order on all three Bayne children which the parents opposed. He admitted that the risk assessment was highly subjective and primarily his opinion. Christie stated that it had a dearth of factual evidence. It essentially vilified the Baynes and on the one page customarily assigned to summarize strengths, Humeny noted no strengths for them as individuals, as a couple or as parents, saying he didn’t know them, yet admitted that he had spent many hours with them in meetings. The hundreds of letters of reference in support of the Baynes, he admitted he knew about but had not read. So perhaps he doesn’t know them. Judge Crabtree will have to settle for himself whether that constitutes evidence. And this thus far is the best that Jensen has been able to do with what he has. All of this exchange is in court transcripts.

What seemed so strong, so ominous, is paler now and fragile.

For Love and For Justice / Part 105 / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

SBS – based on a diagnostic triad of symptoms

Shaking an infant is an unquestionably dangerous and reprehensible action. All efforts to reduce the risks to children by caregivers who do not know how to understand the baby’s needs or cope with a baby’s cries and behaviour are to be commended and supported.

Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is, in essence, a medical diagnosis based on the presence of a diagnostic triad: (1) retinal bleeding, (2) bleeding in the protective layer of the brain, and (3) brain swelling. Bethany had all three. She was a sick baby girl. A well informed doctor when faced with an injured child with no evidence of physical abuse other than the triad of SBS symptoms will consider it his/her duty to be cautious for the sake of both the child and the parents. A respected pediatrician from Vancouver Children’s Hospital diagnosed Bethany as a Shaken Baby.

Presently, reporting regulations require that when retinal hemorrhages and subdural hematomas are discovered in a child, the child is immediately referred to protective services. A mitigating factor must be a believable story from the parent or care giver. If the story cannot be corroborated and if it is merely a story about a household mishap rather than a motor vehicle accident or something traumatically awful, SBS is the fall back assessment. Little or no attention was given to her three month premature birth and the bone fragility and chemical deficiencies consequent to that. Charges will not be laid if the story is supported by a credible witness or two. If that story doesn’t sell, then the SBS diagnosis is applied and the caregiver is put under suspicion and possibly charged. A Shaken Baby has to have a shaker, and who would be the most likely shaker? One or both of the parents. The child will not receive further testing for alternative causes.

With that background data it was reasonable that the Bayne children were taken from the parents in order to protect the children. The Ministry had already discounted the Bayne’s story of an accidental fall of one child on to their baby girl. The accident scenario was reported and recorded in all medical records at various hospitals and clinics over three weeks following the accident. A later CT scan of Bethany’s head confirmed internal bruising precisely at the spot on her head which Zabeth had identified as the area of contact between brother and sister. The attendant physician verified that this bruise was consistent with a contusion at that head location.

That was then. Zabeth and Paul while being subjected to interrogation, arrest, criminal charge, fingerprinting, then dropped charges and a wish of ‘good luck’ from the RCMP, likely looked alarmed and frantic. You don’t put on your best face during a crisis like that. However, in the days, weeks and months that followed, the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) was inundated with letters speaking to the parents’ character, integrity and reliability. Would those references be enough to counter the unexplained head trauma?

Paul and Zabeth had themselves never heard of Glutaric Aciduria yet in internal documents they obtained from the Ministry (MCFD), they learned that their daughter, who had been examined by doctors who were in touch with MCFD, may be suffering from Glutaric Aciduria. Interestingly, this is a condition that is often mistaken for shaken baby syndrome, or child abuse. Glutaric aciduria is a genetic disorder with varied symptoms, sometimes including bleeding and swelling of the brain. Note that this was a Ministry report on file yet unprioritized in order to prefer the unsubstantiated conclusion that the baby had been shaken.

• MCFD pursued an unsubstantiated allegation, let’s call it a suspicion that Baynes shook their baby girl.
• SBS is unproven among biomechanic specialists and pathologists as a valid scientific finding.
• The SBS diagnosis of a Child Protection doctor who examined baby Bayne was challenged by ten prominent medical experts who communicated with the Baynes and whose reports were filed with the MCFD and its lawyer.
• The validity of SBS Shaken Baby Syndrome is being questioned in courts internationally.
• Some courts are banning the use of SBS as a prosecutorial cause and are overturning previous convictions.
• MCFD treatment of Paul and Zabeth appears to demonstrate an intention to permanently remove the Bayne children from their birth parents.

The reliability of an SBS diagnosis however, has become progressively more doubtful as research has increased. In the early 2000’s SBS skeptics emerged particularly with regard to SBS’s legitimacy as a diagnosis when used within the court for prosecution purposes and the number of skeptics has created into a reform movement in the United States and in Canada.

How prolific must misdiagnoses be in North America that innocent people and advocates for innocent people feel compelled to create an entire defence program and a website to assist one another to overcome invasive assaults by government children’s’ agencies. While ostensibly created to protect children, in more cases than any of us desire to know, such agencies through ill advised decisions have destroyed entire families and squander children’s’ futures because the right decisions were not made.

Here is a website called Shaken Baby Syndrome Defense. It wouldn’t exist apart from the appalling quantity of parents and caregivers who have been suspected, charged, convicted and sentenced wrongfully for shaking a baby, when in fact the physical symptoms being flagged have been misdiagnosed.

For Love and For Justice / Part 102 / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

MORE ON THE COLBOURNE TESTIMONY

(The first portion was written earlier today and near the bottom you see an urgent addition in yellow font added a little later. The first is positive, the second is a concern)

I return to recap the results of the testimony and cross examination of Dr. Margaret Colbourne. She was in the witness box Wednesday and Thursday. She is a pediatric emergency medicine physician at BC’s Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, BC, and a pediatrician with the Child Protection Service Unit of the hospital. She was a witness for the Ministry of Children and Family Development. It was her well intentioned diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome in connection with Baby B Bayne that initiated the October 2007 police action MCFD actions against the Baynes. It was her testimony of this diagnosis that was pivotal to the continued claim by MCFD that the Baynes are unfit parents. On Wednesday, when Judge Crabtree stepped from the bench and deliberated for one hour and returned to rule on the matter of whether Dr. Colbourne was qualified to testify that seven week old Baby Bayne's’s injuries were accidental or non accidental, and whether she was qualified to state categorically that Baby B'ss injuries had been sustained by being shaken by an adult, the earth stopped on its axis for a moment. Then it continued to turn while simultaneously the sun shone more brightly and the landscape became clearer for the Baynes. Finn Jensen and Dr. Colbourne were informed that Dr. Colbourne’s testimony concerning the nature of the injuries she observed on the day in October 2007 when she examined Baby B was admissible, but that Dr. Colbourne was not permitted to state her opinions about whether the injuries were non accidental or accidental nor was she permitted to state her belief that Baby B was a shaken baby.

Fundamentally, this is a ruling which speaks to the requisite expertise for distinguishing accidental injuries from injuries inflicted by someone, the latter leading possibly to criminal charges and other consequences such as removal of the children when the injury inducer is a parent. This ruling on this day is specific at the moment to this one case. In time it may serve as the precedent in British Columbia for subsequent cases in which assumptions of cause have been rendered or will be rendered by medical professionals who are unqualified precisely in the disciplines needed for making such critical diagnoses. It is a ruling that speaks to an understanding that certain types of injuries require particular professional credentials. This may become a standard by which to assess the reliability of an expert witness in such cases as shaken baby and other suspected abuse cases that could have differential diagnoses.

In all the incidents of life that are horrific and painful, the understandable instinctive response is to ask, ‘WHY?’ It is possible and even likely that Paul and Zabeth Bayne asked this simply question. But two years and three months have crawled by. During these past months they began to reflect more seriously on the grand scheme of things and the possibility that their agony might one day result in not only redemption for their family but also the restoration of other families where there have been mistaken diagnoses yet no legal recourse because of the strength of condemning testimonies by professionals.

The following is a quick addendum to the post above. It's important to supporters of the Baynes because it shows they need your support and prayers so much more. If you can be at one of the court days, your presence helps them and makes a point to the Court.

I now have had to hastily add this addendum to my previously more positive note about the testimony of Dr. Margaret Colbourne. Yesterday, Thursday, Finn Jensen cleverly began his examination of Dr. Colbourne this way. Since on Wednesday he had received the Judge’s ruling that he could not have Colbourne speak to the cause as accidental or non accidental, he asked for her opinion on what causes she could rule out for Bethany’s injuries. Despite Doug Christie’s objections she was permitted ultimately to narrow the causes until shaken baby was the only statement of cause left standing. (This, in spite of the previous day’s ruling.)

It was revealed during cross examination that Dr. Colbourne now views this injury as ‘blunt impact’ and shaking. She was reminded that she did not state this in her initial diagnosis. When asked at what time she arrived at this conclusion, she stated in the spring of 2008. Doug Christie suggested that this would have been following her receipt of the experts’ reports that had been supplied by the Baynes – reports which validated the history of events as the Baynes had described. Her response was that she had believed the ‘blunt impact’ component at the beginning but had omitted it in her initial report. (The point is that her exclusive shaken baby diagnosis was damning and did not allow for other causal possibilities.)

Dr. Colbourne disagreed that Zabeth witnessed the accident of Baden falling on Bethany. Colbourne testified that Zabeth told her Baden fell on Bethany but that Zabeth had not seen this happen. (That account of the event contradicts the doctors’ reports that preceded Colborne’s involvement – reports which make reference to a witnessed accidental fall of one child on the other.)

Dr. Colbourne also denied knowing that for three weeks prior to admission at Children’s Hospital, Bethany had severe vomiting. When Colbourne was shown an expert’s article which stated that a head injury accompanied by severe vomiting increases intracranial pressure and can cause supplementary bleeding and eye bleeds, Colbourne disagreed.

When Mr. Christie referenced numerous biomechanical papers to which she had access, articles on shaken baby and the physical impossibility for shaken baby to produce the symptoms under discussion, Dr. Colbourne disagreed. (She admitted that when reading the articles she did not comprehend them since biomechanics is not her specialty.)

The witness also disagreed with the published research papers by noted biomechanic and pathology experts which contend that a shaken infant will bear signs of a neck injury. She said that she could not state with assurance that she had ever observed a neck injury on any of the shaken infants she has diagnosed.

Today, Friday, Dr. Randell Alexander has been flown from Florida to give supporting testimony for Dr. Colbourne’s evidence. (His testimony in numerous other cases has assisted the successful prosecution of parents who are in prison today and their children adopted into new families and some parents have faced the death penalty.) More about him later.

Zabeth and Paul Bayne – Part 59 – The Bayne Campaign for Justice

The petition

THE BAYNE CAMPAIGN FOR JUSTICE

Our moral support will help Paul and Zabeth Bayne. Their three children were removed from their home on October 22, 2007. It is difficult to define justice but reasonable people always know when justice is missing. It is missing in their case.

Here is a synopsis of their despair.

Paul and Zabeth have three children, Boy K, born October 18, 2004; Boy B, born June 12, 2005; and Baby B, born August 3, 2007. Baby B and her brothers were taken from the Bayne’s home by the BC Ministry of Children and Family Development on October 22, 2007. Baby B was two months old then and she has not been home since then. She has lived for two years in foster care homes.

This child was seized when the concerned parents took their struggling two month old daughter to the hospital following what Zabeth reported as an accident in which one of the small boys fell on the infant’s head. Baby B became ill and after several examinations was finally taken to British Columbia Children’s Hospital. The attending health professionals are to be commended for flagging what might have potentially been parental abuse. However, consideration of other possible causes for the baby's condition was surrendered to what has become in many cases a default suspicion that one of these parents had shaken this baby causing the head injury. The children were taken from the parents in order to protect the children.

In the months that followed, the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) was inundated with letters speaking to the parents’ character, integrity and reliability. Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated and cleared the Baynes of liability in Baby B's condition. The MCFD however, has maintained its unsubstantiated position of non accidental injury and a presumption of guilt for the Bayne parents. The tale is tangled and does not reflect well on the Ministry at the moment and meanwhile a family has suffered for two years.

Please sign this petition so we may encourage the Baynes and appeal to the BC Ministry of Children to return the Bayne children.

Signing your name is FREE. IGNORE THE DONATION REQUEST ON THE NEXT PAGE. Donations requested here are not for the Bayne Campaign for Justice but rather for this website iPetition design team. JUST EXIT THE DONATION PAGE.

Sign with your full name rather than the anonymous option because that counts best.