Parents jailed over the deaths of their babies are launching appeals over their convictions amid mounting concerns over the forensic expert whose evidence helped convict them.
Leading British bone pathologist professor David Mangham is the subject of a General Medical Council inquiry after his conclusions in one case were dismissed by a judge.
His evidence was countered by experts in another case and three further parents jailed over babies’ deaths are now questioning his expert advice.
Mangham, 62, referred himself to the GMC after a High Court judge criticised his finding of non-accidental rib fractures on a 21-month-old girl found accidentally strangled by a scarf.
The toddler’s grieving parents were questioned over her death but a court later ruled that the fractures were likely to have been caused by a fall and the 90 minutes spent trying to resuscitate her.
A few months later another mother, Laura Langley, was cleared of murdering her seven-week-old daughter after experts contradicted Mangham’s evidence about the cause of fractures to her ribs.
Langley’s defence barrister, Tana Adkin KC, said all the expert’s previous cases should now be reviewed by the Crown Prosecution Service.
She told the Times: ‘This is so serious. We are talking about murder, where people … get a life sentence.’
Alongside his job as a consultant histopathologist at Royal Marsden Hospital in London, Mangham dealt with up to 110 suspicious death cases each year.
Analysis from the Times found that his laboratory, Calamat Ltd, had been paid at least £1.1million by police forces in the past eight years.
Laura Langley, 38, was accused of killing her seven-week-old daughter Edith after she stopped breathing at their home in Blackpool. Experts contradicted Mangham’s evidence about the cause of fractures to Edith’s ribs
Muritala Olaiya-Imam, 37, was found guilty at Chelmsford Crown Court of allowing the death of 12-week-old Malik Goncalves. Malik had found a fracture on Malik’s wrist but a reviewing expert disputed his conclusions
Abigail Palmer (pictured) was convicted of manslaughter in 2019 over the death of her two-month-old daughter Teri-Rae. Palmer claimed she woke from a sleep on the sofa with Teri-Rae lifeless on her chest but Mangham identified eight non-accidental rib fractures
Described by peers as a ‘brilliant’ pathologist, Mangham was made an MBE in 2022.
But three High Court judges have raised concerns about his workload or the quality of his evidence in the past six years, including Mr Justice Keehan’s case last year involving the girl asphyxiated by a scarf.
The judgement stated that Mangham demonstrated a ‘closed mind’ and appeared ‘overburdened with work.’
There are further doubts over the evidence used to convict Muritala Olaiya-Imam, who was jailed for ten years over the death of 11-week-old Malik Goncalves, the Times reported.
Olaiya-Imam was jailed in 2023 for child cruelty and allowing the death of a child. He was not present when Malik was murdered by his mother, Olaiya-Imam’s partner Elodie Goncalves, in Harlow, Essex, in 2020.
Mangham identified a partial fracture on the boy’s left wrist which was dated to between three and six days before death.
Last December, permission was granted for a second bone pathologist, professor Tony Freemont, to review the injury.
Professor Freemont concluded that the damage did not meet the epidemiological criteria for a fracture, the Times reported.
Prof Freemont is now examining evidence in the case of Abigail Palmer, convicted of manslaughter in 2019 over the death of her two-month-old daughter Teri-Rae.
Palmer claimed she woke from a sleep on the sofa with Teri-Rae lifeless on her chest. Mangham identified eight non-accidental rib fractures, but a paramedic’s report described a ‘brutal’ CPR process and the post-mortem examination stated there had been an ‘aggressive and invasive’ resuscitation procedure.
Mangham’s evidence is still being used at trial but forces have asked Freemont to review his findings in about 20 cases, the Times reported.
A CPS spokesman said: ‘In every case the use of expert witness testimony is carefully reviewed and scrutinised by our prosecutors.
‘In light of the High Court judgement, prosecutors will consider disclosure of the judge’s comments to the defence in all cases where Professor Mangham’s expert opinion is in issue – so that any disputed matters can be robustly examined as part of a trial process.
‘We work on an ongoing basis with police forces to identify a breadth of qualified experts whose testimony can be relied on to support complex prosecutions.’
Mangham did not respond to requests for comment from the Times.
