Bruises that were allegedly left on a baby’s neck

Bruises that were allegedly left on a baby’s neck when the child’s stepdad throttled it to death, may have been left by a ‘cack-handed’ pathologist, the Old Bailey heard today.

(Fri)

Doctor Paula Lanas, who has been the subject of a Home Office probe, told the court that 16-month-old xxxx had been smothered by her stepdad, Brian Buchanan.

After conducting the post mortem dissection Doctor Lanas concluded that bruises on the child’s neck were left by Buchanan’s hands as he smothered the struggling tot.

But Buchanan’s barrister Mr Roy Amlot told the court: ‘There’s no way the neck should have been dissected in the way she [Doctor Lanas] did it.

So cack-handed was it that she may have caused one of those bruises to her neck and yet added that to her conclusion that death was caused by strangulation’.

And Mr Amlot added: ‘Her evidence should be rejected in its entirety so suspect has it become’.

The court heard that Doctor Lanas also allowed a junior technician to become involved in the post mortem of young xxxx.

It was even claimed that the mortuary assistant made the first incision of the post mortem.

‘It was a post mortem that was so sub-standard that I am bound to say one wonders why the case was ever opened by the Crown as it was’, Mr Amlot told the court.

Addressing the jury in his final speech, Mr Amlot said of Doctor Lanas: ‘You know that her history is such that her work was being scrutinised by the Home Office and that they had written to her: ‘We want all your reports in all cases from the second half of the year’.

But she didn’t send this report [i.

e.

that of baby xxxx] to the Home Office’.

And when the Home Office invited Doctor Lanas to comment on criticisms of her work, Mr Amlot told the court that they got ‘no answer whatsoever’.

Doctor Lanas claimed that she followed this ‘no comment’ policy after seeking legal advice, but Mr Amlot claimed there was no evidence to support this.

‘No such letter [from her solicitor] was produced to show this was the reason why she wasn’t prepared to reply to their [the Home Office’s] letters’.

And it was said that she disappeared off on holiday for a time when the Home Office applied more pressure on her.