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Babysitter jailed for battering boy to death was the victim of a 'serious miscarriage of justice', hears appeal
Last updated at 15:52pm on 23.04.08A babysitter jailed for battering a two-year-old boy to death was wrongly convicted after he suffered a "catastrophic" epileptic fit, it was claimed yesterday.
Suzanne Holdsworth, 37, was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice and should be cleared on new medical evidence, her lawyers told the Court of Appeal.
She is serving a life sentence for murder after a jury heard she battered Kyle Fisher's head against a wooden banister with the force of a child being thrown from a car at 60mph.
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Fatal brain swelling: Kyle Fisher, two
But her lawyers claimed that theory was based on "misleading" opinions from medical experts and said Kyle could have died from an epileptic seizure brought on by a previous injury.
Holdsworth was accused of killing Kyle in July 2004 while his 19-year-old single mother Clare Fisher was at a nightclub.
She told her murder trial he had suddenly gone "floppy" and collapsed while they watched TV at her home in Hartlepool.
But the jury accepted the prosecution's explanation that Holdsworth, a mother of two, had lost her temper with the child and repeatedly beat his head against a banister.
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Appeal: Suzanne Holdsworth is led from court yesterday
She dialled 999 and he was taken to hospital but died two days later from massive swelling to his brain.
It has previously been claimed that the alleged attack left the banister unmarked by hair, tissue or blood, and did not fracture Kyle's skull.
The Appeal Court heard the boy had a "unique" series of medical problems, all of which made him more likely to develop epilepsy.
Medical expert Dr Philip Anslow said he had an unusually large head and a pre-existing brain abnormality, and the court heard that in 2003 he had broken his eye socket in a fall from his buggy while in his mother's care, further damaging his brain.
Dr Anslow said they were all factors linked to epilepsy and said he believed Kyle had died because he stopped breathing during an epileptic fit.
He said: "Children die of epileptic seizures. It is not very common but it does happen."
A second expert, specialist brain pathologist Dr Waney Squier, said claims that Kyle must have been injured shortly before his collapse were "extremely unreliable".
The court was told he had fallen out of bed the night before the alleged attack by Holdsworth and could have been injured then.
Henry Blaxland, QC, said the new medical evidence undermined the prosecution's case from the 2005 trial and asked the three Appeal Court judges to order a retrial.
Holdsworth was in the dock to hear her lawyers present her case.
Her partner Lee Spencer was in the public gallery with their daughter Jamie-Leigh, 13, who blew kisses to her mother and mouthed: "I love you."
The appeal continues.
