Sunday, 28 December 2008

Howes Family Extradition By Billy Briggs

No UK trial to establish evidence of supplying global crystal-meth labs By Billy Briggs.

A SCOTS couple who have four children face the possibility of prison and extradition to America next month despite having not stood trial in a court for the crime of which they are accused.

In a case that highlights the controversial impact on British justice of the post-9/11 extradition treaty signed between the UK and the US, Brian and Kerry Howes of Bo’ness, West Lothian, are facing extradition to America on allegations of supplying chemicals over the internet in a conspiracy to produce crystal meth.

The couple, who deny the charges, face a preliminary extradition hearing at the high court in Edinburgh on January 14. They fear they will be remanded in custody and their four children will go into care ahead of their removal to America.



Under the terms of the treaty, the US can apply to have someone extradited without any trial taking place in the UK. On signing the Extradition Act 2003, the then home secretary, David Blunkett, removed the obligation on US law enforcement agencies to present British courts with prima facie evidence of criminality. Thanks to the Royal Prerogative, the treaty became law without parliamentary debate, which means that the US must only provide “written information” relating to an alleged wrongdoing.

Crystal meth - a form of amphetamine that has been crystallised so that it can be smoked - is a highly dangerous and addictive drug that has pervaded the poorer sections of American society for the past 20 years. Pseudoephedrine, iodine and red phosphorus are the three main chemicals required to make the drug, which produces a high that may last 12 hours or more.



Brian Howes - an amateur pyrotechnician who sold chemicals in the UK legally - denies that he and his wife broke the law by selling iodine and red phosphorus through their internet business. But federal prosecutors at the Drug Enforcement Agency in Arizona allege they were part of a drugs racket supplying a global network of meth labs in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries.

Howes said their children will have to go into care if they are remanded in custody and that his wife, Kerry, is 23 weeks pregnant and faces giving birth to their fifth child on a chain gang in Arizona. “We just want a fair trial in the UK but that is not going to happen as the extradition treaty replaces the word evidence’ with information’ - and information is accepted as true, that is the wording of the act. We have no faith in these proceedings as the files from our previous solicitors have not arrived with our current solicitors after three months, so no defence has been able to be mounted.

“In England, people are bailed right up to the House of Lords and then the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), but we will be remanded during or after the high court hearing in Edinburgh. We need help with a fund to fight in the ECHR and then we may have a chance of bail. The Scottish legal aid system does not pay for this - in England it is even afforded to people who have confessed to a crime.”
Brian Howes Family



While a passionate debate raged across Britain about the 42-day limit for terror suspects, Brian, 44, and, Kerry-Ann, 30, previously spent 214 days on remand in prison, a detention that lasted five times longer than the proposed terror suspect threshold passed by the House of Commons in June but recently rejected by the House of Lords.

People can be held on remand indefinitely under the extradition treaty.

Middlesbrough Police: Frame Holdsworth John Sweeney

Three years ago Suzanne was jailed for a little boy's murder. But a damning investigation by the Mail found police had missed key evidence. Days after being released, she tells her haunting story to the man who helped clear her.
By John Sweeney
Last updated at 2:50 AM on 27th December 2008

Kyle Fisher, with his obvious eye injury

For Suzanne Holdsworth, the long, dark December nights were always the worst. But then, every minute she spent incarcerated in Low Newton prison, County Durham, was a living nightmare.

As the monotonous weeks and months stretc

hed on, she would often sit and wonder how her partner and two daughters were coping without her.

But it was at night, in her sparse, cramped cell, that the 38-year-old mother would lie awake, weeping silent lonely tears and wondering if she would ever spend another Christmas and New Year with her family again.

'Everybody who's got children and who's in prison knows that every day is hell, but birthdays, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve are the worst days of your life,' she says. 'Everyone else is having a happy time with their families, but you are locked inside.

'You can't have visits on Christmas Day: you have phone calls, but only at certain times of the day. All that me and the other girls wanted to do was

talk to our children all day.

'But there's nothing you can do but close the door behind you and cry and cry and cry.'

Were Suzanne a cold-blooded killer, or even

a part-time petty criminal, it might be hard to feel any sympathy.

But the fact is she was serving a life sentence for a crime she did not commit.

In 2005, she was convicted of the murder of two-year-old Kyle Fisher, the son of a 19-year-old single mother who had left him in her charge. Suzanne has always denied harming the little boy in her care.

She was jailed for life for Kyle's murder. In May this year, however, the Court of Appeal ruled that her conviction was unsafe after new medical eviden

ce emerged suggesting the baby may have died from an epileptic seizure. A retrial was ordered, and at the new trial a jury unanimously found Suzanne not guilty.

Just eight days ago, on December 18, Suzanne was freed. She stood, hand-in-hand with her partner Lee Spencer, on the steps of Teesside Crown Court, enjoying her first taste of freedom in more than 1,000 days.

She is now home, spending Christmas and New Year with Lee and daughters Lesley, 20, and Jamie-Leigh, 14, as well as her new grandson, Matthew.

She falters as she speaks: 'Did I ever think this day would come? No. I thought I would be in prison forever.'

Holdsworth-family

An emotional Suzanne Holdsworth leaves Teeside Crown Court after being found not guilty in her retrial for the murder of Kyle Fisher

At the time of Kyle's death, police investigating accused Suzanne, from Seacroft, Leeds, of repeatedly smashing his head against a banister in a fit of rage.

'I never harmed him, I loved him,' she said, and certainly it left family and friends bew

ildered that the woman they called a modern-day Mary Poppins could have any connection to such horror.

But Cleveland police were adamant: Suzanne Holdsworth, a former supermarket shelf-stacker, was a brazen liar and a baby killer.

Only something didn't quite add up. If there was a smashing of Kyle's head into a wooden banister, why was there no sign of impact? No blood, no hair, no traces of Kyle's skin anywhere in Suzanne's house. Why had no DNA test - which could have cleared Suzanne in the first instance - ever been carriedout?

'It was horrendous'

Kyle also suffered from myriad problems. First, heterotopia - brain matter in the wrong place, which can cause fits; second, megalencephaly - an abnormally big brain, which can cause fits; third, hydrocephaly - water on the brain, which can also cause fits; fourth, subdural haemorrhage, which can also cause fits.

Fifth, Kyle had been accidentally stabbed in the brain, in someone else's care, a year before he died - a terrible injury that caused his eye to droop as his damaged brain squeezed down 'like toothpaste through the tube'. It was pressing down through a hole in his eye socket onto the back of his eye.

Stabbing, squeezing and scarring of the brain can cause fits, too. And fits can kill.

These five brain disorders, any one of which could trigger an epileptic fit, eluded Cleveland Police's 'relentless investigation'.

So when Suzanne told the first trial jury in 2005 that Kyle had suffered from a fit, no one believed her.

'I remember the verdict coming,' says Suzanne, who even now is traumatised when talking about her ordeal. 'I remember seeing my partner Lee. Next minute, I was in a prison cell with just a bed and a CCTV camera looking at me. It was horrendous. Having no freedom, having people tell you what to do all the time.

Clare Fisher, Kyle's mum, had gone out clubbing and left her son in Suzanne's care.

Clair-fisher

'Missing my two children was the most terrible thing, and to begin with some of the other prisoners called me names: nonce, child killer. It didn't matter that I knew I'd done nothing wrong, no one can ever understand what that feeling is like - to be locked away in such a dreadful place and for murder no less, when you have done nothing wrong.'

Today, as they prepare to welcome in 2009, she and Lee, a lorry driver, want to put the past behind them. But they are angry and bitter at how such a grotesque miscarriage of justice could tear their family apart for over four years.

I first reported on the possibility that Suzanne was in jail thanks to a grotesque miscarriage of justice a year ago for BBC2's Newsnight.

Since 2001, I have helped free or clear the names of eight people who have been wrongly accused of child murder and manslaughter, starting with cot death mothers Sally Clark, who died of grief last year, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony.

All eight stories are double tragedies: the death of a child compounded by the false conviction of an innocent parent or carer. In seven of the eight cases, police and the courts were misled by rogue experts such as Professor Sir Roy Meadow or disputed scientific theories such as 'shaken baby syndrome'.

I was approached about Suzanne's case by her lawyer, whom I had worked with on previous occasions and court cases. The minute he showed me all the evidence - NOT taken into account by police officers working on the original murder inquiry - it seemed obvious that this was one of the worst miscarriages of justice I had ever encountered.

And it was also deeply troubling because it raises questions about the thoroughness of the original inquiry carried out by Cleveland Police.

It was led by Detective Superintendent Tony Hutchinson, who has since retired.

Hutchinson was Cleveland's bullet-headed super-cop, leading dozens of murder inquiries, who shot to international fame when he nailed missing 'canoe man' John Darwin.

Hutchinson maintained after Suzanne's first trial that she 'must have known very quickly that she had inflicted serious, if not fatal, injuries, and while she called for medical assistance' - the 999 call - 'she also began to manipulate the situation. She very calmly applied her mind as to how she would explain the injury to the authorities.'

Could she really be such a calculating killer, though? Naturally, Suzanne's own version of events - and the 999 call itself, which was broadcast last week for the first time - does not appear to suggest it.

It was late evening on July 21, 2004, when Suzanne was babysitting Kyle because his mother Clare Fisher had gone out clubbing. Suzanne's daughters were with Lee, who was working abroad.

Jon Taylor, Kyle's father, has said he never believed Suzanne was responsible for his son's murder

John-taylor

Suzanne explains the events of that terrible night: 'Clare came over with Kyle, then went out to a nightclub with a friend. Kyle had his yoghurt and juice and we sat together, watching the reality show Big Brother on TV.

'We were having a lovely evening and then I must have yawned, because Kyle said: "Suzie tired". Then, as he shuffled to get off the sofa, his head went down, in a sort of flopping motion. I moved the coffee table out of the way and his head fell to the floor. I put him down on the sofa and threw water on him, the shock of it should have woken him because he hated water. Nothing. I dialled 999.'

A miscarriage of justice

The emergency call was played in court at Suzanne's trial. In it, clearly panicking, Suzanne describes Kyle as going 'all floppy, he's not breathing, his eyes are rolling and everything' - a classic description of an epileptic fit.

Suzanne is screaming and sobbing so much the operator cannot understand what she is saying, hard to reconcile with Hutchinson's concept of a calm, manipulative mind at work.

Then there is the so-called murder weapon. Andrew Robertson QC, prosecuting, alleged at trial and retrial that Suzanne had smashed Kyle's head against a banister at her house. But nothing was visible on the banister - no dent, no blood, nothing.

At the first trial, Judge Grigson said that the evidence presented by the Crown's forensic expert was of 'breathtaking banality'.

At the second trial, the jury pointedly asked whether Kyle's DNA was on the banister. The answer? No tests had been carried out.

Lee, Suzanne's partner, shakes his head in disbelief, still unable to fathom why the police didn't carry out tests on the banister.

'They didn't do a DNA test on the alleged weapon. I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but what kind of investigation was that?' he says. 'DNA profiling can distinguish between snot, tears, saliva, hair follicles, scalp. Technology can distinguish between all of them, but no DNA test was done.'

John-sweeney

The author, investigative reporter John Sweeney, who helped clear Suzanne Holdsworth of murder

Then there is the question of Kyle's general well-being. Cleveland Police said that Kyle was an essentially healthy boy whom Suzanne had murdered.

'They told me again and again, "You did it, you did it",' says Suzanne. 'They were so wrong. Look at his drooping eye.'

On March, 15, 2003 - more than a year before he died - Kyle was taken to hospital with an injury to that eye.

On that very day, Lee had noticed Clare Fisher cradling her injured son outside her house in Troutpool Close, Hartlepool. She explained that he had fallen from his pram onto a spike from a fireguard. His eye socket was filling with blood.

It was patched up, but months later when Kyle's eye began to droop, he was taken back to the James Cook hospital in Hartlepool, and in February 2004 he was seen by face surgeon Professor Brian Avery and brain surgeon Sid Marks.

They carried out brain scans, found a hole in the eye socket through which the brain was squeezing 'like toothpaste through the tube' and planned to operate on him. This should have been crucial evidence in the investigation. But Cleveland Police never took statements from the two surgeons.

Suzanne is livid about what appears to be a gross lapse of normal police procedure: 'The drooping eye should have been investigated properly by the police,' she says.

'Kyle died of a head injury. The droopy eye was a head injury.'

What angered Suzanne and Lee most, though, was that her own defence team didn't call a single defence expert at her first trial.

Finally, a free woman
Publish Post

After Suzanne was convicted, Lee - who never doubted her innocence - found a new defence solicitor, Campbell Malone. He helped free wrongly convicted Stefan Kiszko, who spent 16 years in prison for the murder of schoolgirl Lesley Molseed.

Malone contacted me and we set about gathering the evidence that would help clear Suzanne's name. Malone found three experts on human brain disorders.

Dr Waney Squier, a neuropathologist at Oxford University, was the first to identify that Kyle was in danger of suffering fits from his brain abnormalities and his injury, and the conviction against Suzanne could be a miscarriage of justice.

Last December, while Suzanne was still in prison, Dr Squier told BBC's Newsnight programme that Kyle had 'abnormalities in his brain that would predispose him to having seizures. And seizures can kill.'

In her view it was 'extremely unlikely' Suzanne had killed Kyle.

Kyle's eye was seriously injured in a freak accident a year before his death

After the second trial, expert for the defence Bill Dobyns, professor of neurology, paediatrics and genetics at Chicago University, told me: 'It's almost embarrassing the number of medical factors they (the police and prosecution) first completely missed, and when I and other defence witnesses pointed out, they then ignored.'

On top of this, there is also the ordinary evidence of Suzanne's character. Trusted by friends and family as a babysitter, Suzanne was said to be 'very good with children'.

Even Kyle's father - who had long since split with Kyle's mother - believed her to be innocent.

But the same could not be said for the character of Kyle's own mother. One woman juror at the second trial was seen holding her hand in front of her mouth in horror as the court watched a video of Clare Fisher's house: clothes strewn about, objects were lying around, and Kyle's bedroom looked like a junkyard, with a broken cot on the floor.

Judge Grigson at the first trial told the jury that the house had been described as a 's***-pit'.

Clare even admitted at the second trial that she had been a negligent, 'home-alone' mother.

Four nights before he died, she had locked Kyle in a bedroom by blocking the door with a broom handle and tying it with a belt, before going out clubbing.

A neighbour heard Kyle crying and called the police. Suzanne only realised what had happened afterwards, but says Clare asked her to cover up and say she had been with Kyle that night to stop Clare getting into trouble. Suzanne agreed to help her friend and neighbour.

'I was wrong to cover up for Clare,' says Suzanne. 'I told a white lie - but the prosecution made it much darker. I ended up paying for it for three years inside.'

Another issue at both trials was unexplained bruising on Kyle's head. Both babysitter and mother deny causing the bruising.

Another expert, Professor Renzo Guerrini from the University of Florence, gave evidence that it could have been caused by Kyle himself, banging his own head in an unseen fit. And if the bruising had been caused by one of the two women, then which one?

As Suzanne adjusts to life back with her family, Cleveland Police have announced they will not be apologising for what they describe as a 'thorough, diligent and professional investigation'.

Chief Constable Sean Price says: 'I can't criticise my officers for doing their job. The reason we have jury trials is so they can decide when they have heard all the facts.

'I don't really have any intention of speaking to Suzanne Holdsworth, and she probably just wants to be allowed to get on with things now.'

Suzanne and Lee are naturally disappointed, but not surprised, at the police's reaction.

'I spent three years in prison for a murder that didn't happen so the chief constable is wrong,' says Suzanne.

'I'll never forget Kyle. I loved him very much, but it is utterly wrong that I have had to suffer, too, for something I haven't done. Yes, I'm thankful to be free, but an apology is something I would like very much.'

Middlesbrough Police: Frame Holdsworth John Sweeney

Three years ago Suzanne was jailed for a little boy's murder. But a damning investigation by the Mail found police had missed key evidence. Days after being released, she tells her haunting story to the man who helped clear her.
By John Sweeney
Last updated at 2:50 AM on 27th December 2008

Kyle Fisher, with his obvious eye injury

For Suzanne Holdsworth, the long, dark December nights were always the worst. But then, every minute she spent incarcerated in Low Newton prison, County Durham, was a living nightmare.

As the monotonous weeks and months stretc

hed on, she would often sit and wonder how her partner and two daughters were coping without her.

But it was at night, in her sparse, cramped cell, that the 38-year-old mother would lie awake, weeping silent lonely tears and wondering if she would ever spend another Christmas and New Year with her family again.

'Everybody who's got children and who's in prison knows that every day is hell, but birthdays, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve are the worst days of your life,' she says. 'Everyone else is having a happy time with their families, but you are locked inside.

'You can't have visits on Christmas Day: you have phone calls, but only at certain times of the day. All that me and the other girls wanted to do was

talk to our children all day.

'But there's nothing you can do but close the door behind you and cry and cry and cry.'

Were Suzanne a cold-blooded killer, or even

a part-time petty criminal, it might be hard to feel any sympathy.

But the fact is she was serving a life sentence for a crime she did not commit.

In 2005, she was convicted of the murder of two-year-old Kyle Fisher, the son of a 19-year-old single mother who had left him in her charge. Suzanne has always denied harming the little boy in her care.

She was jailed for life for Kyle's murder. In May this year, however, the Court of Appeal ruled that her conviction was unsafe after new medical eviden

ce emerged suggesting the baby may have died from an epileptic seizure. A retrial was ordered, and at the new trial a jury unanimously found Suzanne not guilty.

Just eight days ago, on December 18, Suzanne was freed. She stood, hand-in-hand with her partner Lee Spencer, on the steps of Teesside Crown Court, enjoying her first taste of freedom in more than 1,000 days.

She is now home, spending Christmas and New Year with Lee and daughters Lesley, 20, and Jamie-Leigh, 14, as well as her new grandson, Matthew.

She falters as she speaks: 'Did I ever think this day would come? No. I thought I would be in prison forever.'

Holdsworth-family

An emotional Suzanne Holdsworth leaves Teeside Crown Court after being found not guilty in her retrial for the murder of Kyle Fisher

At the time of Kyle's death, police investigating accused Suzanne, from Seacroft, Leeds, of repeatedly smashing his head against a banister in a fit of rage.

'I never harmed him, I loved him,' she said, and certainly it left family and friends bew

ildered that the woman they called a modern-day Mary Poppins could have any connection to such horror.

But Cleveland police were adamant: Suzanne Holdsworth, a former supermarket shelf-stacker, was a brazen liar and a baby killer.

Only something didn't quite add up. If there was a smashing of Kyle's head into a wooden banister, why was there no sign of impact? No blood, no hair, no traces of Kyle's skin anywhere in Suzanne's house. Why had no DNA test - which could have cleared Suzanne in the first instance - ever been carriedout?

'It was horrendous'

Kyle also suffered from myriad problems. First, heterotopia - brain matter in the wrong place, which can cause fits; second, megalencephaly - an abnormally big brain, which can cause fits; third, hydrocephaly - water on the brain, which can also cause fits; fourth, subdural haemorrhage, which can also cause fits.

Fifth, Kyle had been accidentally stabbed in the brain, in someone else's care, a year before he died - a terrible injury that caused his eye to droop as his damaged brain squeezed down 'like toothpaste through the tube'. It was pressing down through a hole in his eye socket onto the back of his eye.

Stabbing, squeezing and scarring of the brain can cause fits, too. And fits can kill.

These five brain disorders, any one of which could trigger an epileptic fit, eluded Cleveland Police's 'relentless investigation'.

So when Suzanne told the first trial jury in 2005 that Kyle had suffered from a fit, no one believed her.

'I remember the verdict coming,' says Suzanne, who even now is traumatised when talking about her ordeal. 'I remember seeing my partner Lee. Next minute, I was in a prison cell with just a bed and a CCTV camera looking at me. It was horrendous. Having no freedom, having people tell you what to do all the time.

Clare Fisher, Kyle's mum, had gone out clubbing and left her son in Suzanne's care.

Clair-fisher

'Missing my two children was the most terrible thing, and to begin with some of the other prisoners called me names: nonce, child killer. It didn't matter that I knew I'd done nothing wrong, no one can ever understand what that feeling is like - to be locked away in such a dreadful place and for murder no less, when you have done nothing wrong.'

Today, as they prepare to welcome in 2009, she and Lee, a lorry driver, want to put the past behind them. But they are angry and bitter at how such a grotesque miscarriage of justice could tear their family apart for over four years.

I first reported on the possibility that Suzanne was in jail thanks to a grotesque miscarriage of justice a year ago for BBC2's Newsnight.

Since 2001, I have helped free or clear the names of eight people who have been wrongly accused of child murder and manslaughter, starting with cot death mothers Sally Clark, who died of grief last year, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony.

All eight stories are double tragedies: the death of a child compounded by the false conviction of an innocent parent or carer. In seven of the eight cases, police and the courts were misled by rogue experts such as Professor Sir Roy Meadow or disputed scientific theories such as 'shaken baby syndrome'.

I was approached about Suzanne's case by her lawyer, whom I had worked with on previous occasions and court cases. The minute he showed me all the evidence - NOT taken into account by police officers working on the original murder inquiry - it seemed obvious that this was one of the worst miscarriages of justice I had ever encountered.

And it was also deeply troubling because it raises questions about the thoroughness of the original inquiry carried out by Cleveland Police.

It was led by Detective Superintendent Tony Hutchinson, who has since retired.

Hutchinson was Cleveland's bullet-headed super-cop, leading dozens of murder inquiries, who shot to international fame when he nailed missing 'canoe man' John Darwin.

Hutchinson maintained after Suzanne's first trial that she 'must have known very quickly that she had inflicted serious, if not fatal, injuries, and while she called for medical assistance' - the 999 call - 'she also began to manipulate the situation. She very calmly applied her mind as to how she would explain the injury to the authorities.'

Could she really be such a calculating killer, though? Naturally, Suzanne's own version of events - and the 999 call itself, which was broadcast last week for the first time - does not appear to suggest it.

It was late evening on July 21, 2004, when Suzanne was babysitting Kyle because his mother Clare Fisher had gone out clubbing. Suzanne's daughters were with Lee, who was working abroad.

Jon Taylor, Kyle's father, has said he never believed Suzanne was responsible for his son's murder

John-taylor

Suzanne explains the events of that terrible night: 'Clare came over with Kyle, then went out to a nightclub with a friend. Kyle had his yoghurt and juice and we sat together, watching the reality show Big Brother on TV.

'We were having a lovely evening and then I must have yawned, because Kyle said: "Suzie tired". Then, as he shuffled to get off the sofa, his head went down, in a sort of flopping motion. I moved the coffee table out of the way and his head fell to the floor. I put him down on the sofa and threw water on him, the shock of it should have woken him because he hated water. Nothing. I dialled 999.'

A miscarriage of justice

The emergency call was played in court at Suzanne's trial. In it, clearly panicking, Suzanne describes Kyle as going 'all floppy, he's not breathing, his eyes are rolling and everything' - a classic description of an epileptic fit.

Suzanne is screaming and sobbing so much the operator cannot understand what she is saying, hard to reconcile with Hutchinson's concept of a calm, manipulative mind at work.

Then there is the so-called murder weapon. Andrew Robertson QC, prosecuting, alleged at trial and retrial that Suzanne had smashed Kyle's head against a banister at her house. But nothing was visible on the banister - no dent, no blood, nothing.

At the first trial, Judge Grigson said that the evidence presented by the Crown's forensic expert was of 'breathtaking banality'.

At the second trial, the jury pointedly asked whether Kyle's DNA was on the banister. The answer? No tests had been carried out.

Lee, Suzanne's partner, shakes his head in disbelief, still unable to fathom why the police didn't carry out tests on the banister.

'They didn't do a DNA test on the alleged weapon. I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but what kind of investigation was that?' he says. 'DNA profiling can distinguish between snot, tears, saliva, hair follicles, scalp. Technology can distinguish between all of them, but no DNA test was done.'

John-sweeney

The author, investigative reporter John Sweeney, who helped clear Suzanne Holdsworth of murder

Then there is the question of Kyle's general well-being. Cleveland Police said that Kyle was an essentially healthy boy whom Suzanne had murdered.

'They told me again and again, "You did it, you did it",' says Suzanne. 'They were so wrong. Look at his drooping eye.'

On March, 15, 2003 - more than a year before he died - Kyle was taken to hospital with an injury to that eye.

On that very day, Lee had noticed Clare Fisher cradling her injured son outside her house in Troutpool Close, Hartlepool. She explained that he had fallen from his pram onto a spike from a fireguard. His eye socket was filling with blood.

It was patched up, but months later when Kyle's eye began to droop, he was taken back to the James Cook hospital in Hartlepool, and in February 2004 he was seen by face surgeon Professor Brian Avery and brain surgeon Sid Marks.

They carried out brain scans, found a hole in the eye socket through which the brain was squeezing 'like toothpaste through the tube' and planned to operate on him. This should have been crucial evidence in the investigation. But Cleveland Police never took statements from the two surgeons.

Suzanne is livid about what appears to be a gross lapse of normal police procedure: 'The drooping eye should have been investigated properly by the police,' she says.

'Kyle died of a head injury. The droopy eye was a head injury.'

What angered Suzanne and Lee most, though, was that her own defence team didn't call a single defence expert at her first trial.

Finally, a free woman
Publish Post

After Suzanne was convicted, Lee - who never doubted her innocence - found a new defence solicitor, Campbell Malone. He helped free wrongly convicted Stefan Kiszko, who spent 16 years in prison for the murder of schoolgirl Lesley Molseed.

Malone contacted me and we set about gathering the evidence that would help clear Suzanne's name. Malone found three experts on human brain disorders.

Dr Waney Squier, a neuropathologist at Oxford University, was the first to identify that Kyle was in danger of suffering fits from his brain abnormalities and his injury, and the conviction against Suzanne could be a miscarriage of justice.

Last December, while Suzanne was still in prison, Dr Squier told BBC's Newsnight programme that Kyle had 'abnormalities in his brain that would predispose him to having seizures. And seizures can kill.'

In her view it was 'extremely unlikely' Suzanne had killed Kyle.

Kyle's eye was seriously injured in a freak accident a year before his death

After the second trial, expert for the defence Bill Dobyns, professor of neurology, paediatrics and genetics at Chicago University, told me: 'It's almost embarrassing the number of medical factors they (the police and prosecution) first completely missed, and when I and other defence witnesses pointed out, they then ignored.'

On top of this, there is also the ordinary evidence of Suzanne's character. Trusted by friends and family as a babysitter, Suzanne was said to be 'very good with children'.

Even Kyle's father - who had long since split with Kyle's mother - believed her to be innocent.

But the same could not be said for the character of Kyle's own mother. One woman juror at the second trial was seen holding her hand in front of her mouth in horror as the court watched a video of Clare Fisher's house: clothes strewn about, objects were lying around, and Kyle's bedroom looked like a junkyard, with a broken cot on the floor.

Judge Grigson at the first trial told the jury that the house had been described as a 's***-pit'.

Clare even admitted at the second trial that she had been a negligent, 'home-alone' mother.

Four nights before he died, she had locked Kyle in a bedroom by blocking the door with a broom handle and tying it with a belt, before going out clubbing.

A neighbour heard Kyle crying and called the police. Suzanne only realised what had happened afterwards, but says Clare asked her to cover up and say she had been with Kyle that night to stop Clare getting into trouble. Suzanne agreed to help her friend and neighbour.

'I was wrong to cover up for Clare,' says Suzanne. 'I told a white lie - but the prosecution made it much darker. I ended up paying for it for three years inside.'

Another issue at both trials was unexplained bruising on Kyle's head. Both babysitter and mother deny causing the bruising.

Another expert, Professor Renzo Guerrini from the University of Florence, gave evidence that it could have been caused by Kyle himself, banging his own head in an unseen fit. And if the bruising had been caused by one of the two women, then which one?

As Suzanne adjusts to life back with her family, Cleveland Police have announced they will not be apologising for what they describe as a 'thorough, diligent and professional investigation'.

Chief Constable Sean Price says: 'I can't criticise my officers for doing their job. The reason we have jury trials is so they can decide when they have heard all the facts.

'I don't really have any intention of speaking to Suzanne Holdsworth, and she probably just wants to be allowed to get on with things now.'

Suzanne and Lee are naturally disappointed, but not surprised, at the police's reaction.

'I spent three years in prison for a murder that didn't happen so the chief constable is wrong,' says Suzanne.

'I'll never forget Kyle. I loved him very much, but it is utterly wrong that I have had to suffer, too, for something I haven't done. Yes, I'm thankful to be free, but an apology is something I would like very much.'

Sunday, 21 December 2008

Middlesbrough Police: How did Kyle die?


Kyle1




Kyle Fisher left.


(Cleveland Police need investigating urgently)



Published Date:


19 December 2008






The devoted dad of tragic tot Kyle Fisher is demanding the police investigation into his death is re-opened.

A jury yesterday cleared babysitter Suzanne Holdsworth of killing two-year-old Kyle, from Houghton, after she was accused of flying into a fit of rage and repeatedly banging his head against a wooden banister with as much force as a 60mph crash.

Ms Holdsworth, 38, of Boggart Hill Drive, Leeds, appeared at Teesside Crown Court, accused of murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter after a retrial.

But after almost three weeks in court, a jury yesterday acquitted Ms Holdsworth of the charges, and Cleveland Police say they have no plans to reopen the case.



John Sweeney call with Suzanne Holdsworth in

prison, a very sad call.











Today Kyle's distraught dad, Jon Taylor, of Houghton, demanded answers and a further probe into the death of his son, who he knows as Kyle Jon David Taylor.

He said: "I was never 100 per cent certain Suzanne did it. It's taken four years to get to this."

"It's been hard for the last four years and all I want now is to find out how he died.

"I want to know the truth, I'm sick of it all.

"There's no resolution for me as to what happened, and that's what I want."

Ms Holdsworth was accused of killing Kyle, of Houghton, at her home, then in Millpool Close, Hartlepool, as she looked after him while his mum, Clare Fisher, went to a karaoke night on July 21, 2004.




It was also claimed Ms Holdsworth assaulted Kyle the previous night when she looked after him while his mum went to the cinema.

But Ms Holdsworth, a former supermarket worker, argued Kyle suddenly "went floppy", started hitting himself and was drifting in and out of consciousness while they were watching TV on the sofa.






He was taken to Hartlepool's University Hospital and was later transferred to Newcastle General Hospital where he was put on a ventilator, but was later taken off after it became clear he was brain dead.



During the retrial, the jury heard from two medical experts who said an epileptic fit was most likely to have been the cause of death.

But the court also heard baby Kyle had bruising and marks to his head.



Ms Holdsworth's defence blamed Kyle's mum, claiming they were inflicted the previous day and, coupled with his brain abnormalities, led to the deadly fit.

The court heard Miss Fisher was suffering from depression at the time and was unable to cope with the demands of bringing up a toddler.





Her house was untidy, neighbours complained of loud music at night, and days before Kyle died, she "mistreated" him by leaving him home alone while out with friends.

Andrew Thomas QC, defending, said: "It is Clare Fisher who is the credible candidate for attacking Kyle in this case."

Friday, 19 December 2008

Kyle: 'Police must apologise for years of hell'

Published Date: 19 December 2008 ( Cleveland Police the UK's most corrupt force on record.)

SUZANNE Holdsworth's solicitor has demanded an apology from police after she was put through years of hell.

Campbell Malone went on to say that Suzanne was "lucky" to have partner Lee Spencer by her side throughout her grim ordeal.

Mr Malone said: "It's difficult to use the word lucky when she has spent years in prison but she is lucky that she has had Lee by her side, he is a great guy.



"He has been the driving force behind this.

"Lee knew that she simply could not have done this and he never wavered in getting the case re-opened after her conviction."

Mr Malone hit out at police for praising their inquiry in a force publication and called on them to
apologise to Suzanne.


He added: "When Suzanne was originally convicted, the police, in their annual publication, congratulated themselves and I hope they are going to take a deep, serious look at this investigation.

"I had hoped the appeal would have been the end of it but although it has been a prolonged ordeal for Suzanne it is great that all of the evidence has come out and she has been cleared by a local jury.

"I know that the one thing Suzanne would like to come out of this case is an apology from the police."

After the case, Cleveland Police said they would not be reopening the investigation into Kyle's death, and later added an apology would not be issued.

Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Braithwaite said: "The retrial of Suzanne Holdsworth was properly brought at the direction of the Court of Appeal and followed the receipt of new expert medical evidence that was not available to the jury at the first trial.

"This has been a classic jury case. Their job is to consider the evidence against the defendant. To convict they must be sure of the defendant's guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

"The jury has properly done their job and have acquitted Suzanne Holdsworth. It is not our intention to reopen investigations into Kyle's tragic death."

Of the apology, a Cleveland Police spokeswoman added: "We are not reopening the investigation into Kyle Fisher's death and we are not issuing an apology."

Keith Simpson, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "The role of the Crown Prosecution Service is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to justify a case being brought and a realistic prospect of conviction.

"The role of the jury is to decide whether the evidence shows beyond any reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty.

"That is how our justice system works.

"The jury have decided that Miss Holdsworth is innocent.

"I am entirely satisfied that the Crown Prosecution Service and the police were wholly right in bringing this case to court for a second time."

It later emerged that Kyle was not known to social services at Hartlepool Borough Council, and was therefore never deemed to be at risk.

A serious case review after his death concluded that any culpability for Kyle's death "lay outside any professional agency".

It also emerged during the trial that the tragic youngster was due to undergo surgery for a brain condition, but that medical evidence never came to light.

Babysitter Suzanne Holdsworth not guilty of murder

Suzanne Holdsworth
Suzanne Holdsworth always denied murdering the toddler

A babysitter who spent three years in prison for the murder of a neighbour's two-year-old son has been found not guilty at a retrial.

Suzanne Holdsworth had been accused of banging Kyle Fisher's head against a banister in Hartlepool in July 2004.

Ms Holdsworth, 38, now of Boggart Hill Drive, Leeds, was convicted in 2005.

However, doubts were raised about her conviction by journalist John Sweeney in a report for BBC Newsnight and it was quashed in May.

The jury at the retrial at Teesside Crown Court deliberated for two days before returning the not guilty verdict.

The mother-of-two was originally convicted of the murder in March 2005 and jailed for life.

Kyle Fisher
Kyle: "Unlikely to have suffered massive blow to head"

She was released from prison earlier this year after serving three years.

A spokesman for Cleveland Police said the force would not be reopening the case and would not be apologising to Ms Holdsworth, while the CPS defended the police's right to bring the case to court a second time.

During Ms Holdsworth's original trial she was accused of repeatedly banging Kyle's head against a wooden banister with as much force as a 60mph crash after losing her temper.

The Newsnight programme interviewed leading neuro-pathologist Dr Wainey Squier who later gave evidence for the defence in the retrial.

She said it was "unlikely" Kyle had suffered a massive blow to the head.

During the retrial the court heard the youngster had bruising and marks to his head but Ms Holdsworth's defence maintained they were inflicted the previous day - blaming Kyle's mother - and coupled with his brain abnormalities, led to the unexpected fit.

'Terrible experience'

Professor Renzo Guerrini, a paediatric neurologist at the University of Florence Children's Hospital, said: "In my opinion there is compelling evidence he had some head injury before this night.

"This might have been trivial but sufficient enough to produce bleeding on the brain which triggered the epileptic seizure which because of Kyle's brain condition was possibly prolonged."

Lee Spencer speaks on behalf of his partner, Suzanne Holdsworth

Standing next to Ms Holdsworth outside the court on Thursday, her partner Lee Spencer said: "This case has always been about Kyle, who was a loving child, a little boy, who Suzanne's always loved and helped look after.

"We know his family deeply loved him and miss him.

"Sadly we now know that he had some bad medical features that led to his sudden collapse and death.

"We hope that this knowledge will help his family come to terms with his death.

"This has been a terrible experience for Suzanne and our family and we now just want to try and pick up the pieces of our lives together."

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Cleveland police officers suspended over alleged misconduct




TWO Cleveland Police officers and two civilian members of staff have been suspended over alleged misconduct.


An internal investigation by the force is now under way.


The two civilian workers were sent home from work on November 4, while the two police officers were suspended the following day.


The police officers are understood to be a senior officer and a detective based in Middlesbrough.


A Cleveland Police spokeswoman said: “Two police officers and two members of police staff have been suspended in relation to allegations of misconduct. Inquiries are ongoing.


“There are no criminal matters being considered and this is an internal investigation only at this stage.”


The force would not reveal what the alleged misconduct was.


Steve Matthews, chairman of the Cleveland Police Federation, said he could not comment on the civilian workers, who were not members of the police union.


He added: “I can confirm that two police officers are being investigated for alleged misconduct.”