18 days in court, seven years of suffering: Experts take aim at failed shaken baby case
A Victorian man lost his relationship, custody of his children and faced a child homicide charge after specialists at the Royal Children’s Hospital made a diagnosis of child abuse that did not stand up in court. The man’s four-week-old baby died in 2017 and doctors at the hospital’s Victorian Forensic Paediatric Medical Service’s (VFPMS) quickly came to believe he had shaken his son so violently he caused catastrophic brain damage. The man, who can only be identified as David, insists his baby, Oliver, simply had a seizure one night in his arms. He has spoken publicly for the first time on the podcast, Diagnosing Murder, about the seven-year ordeal that followed, and how it has changed his life. Doctors diagnosed Oliver with shaken baby syndrome, now more commonly known as abusive, or inflicted head trauma. The diagnosis has become controversial globally, with critics saying the scientific evidence to support it is weak and contested.