News

A mother who has spent six years in jail for murdering her two children was freed on bail at the Court of Appeal this week after the prosecution said that it would not be seeking to uphold her convictions which relied on evidence from paediatrician professor Roy Meadow, writes Amy Taylor.

Donna Anthony has always claimed that her children died of cot death but her original appeal in June 2000 was dismissed. However, last month the Criminal Cases Review Commission said it was sending her case back to the Court of Appeal after considering “new expert medical evidence”.  

Her case was one of the 28 referred to the CCRC after the quashing of the conviction of Angela Cannings last April.

Anthony was jailed for life in 1998 at Bristol Crown Court for killing her 11-month-old daughter Jordan and four-month old son Michael.

The prosecution told the High Court judge this week that it would not be seeking to uphold Anthony’s murder convictions.

The judge said that in light of the Crown’s concession a bail application by Anthony “ought to succeed”. But he told the court that she would remain a convicted murderer at least until her case is heard by three Appeal Court judges in April.

Despite the Crown’s agreement that her convictions are unsafe, the judge said that it would be for the Appeal Court to make its own mind up on whether the jury’s verdicts should be quashed.