Last week the Court of Appeal ruled that Norfolk childminder Helen Stacey, 44, had not deliberately set out to kill six-month Joseph Mackin in May 1997. As a result her murder conviction was substituted with one of manslaughter and she has to serve another year in jail.
However, campaigners who believe Mrs Stacey to be innocent of violently shaking the baby described the decision as 'appalling'. Tom Watkins, who works for the Portia Campaign, which campaigns for women in jail it believes are innocent, said, 'I talked to Helen in June and know she will be extremely distressed by the reduction to manslaughter, because she will think people still believe she is guilty of killing Joseph Mackin. She has always maintained her innocence.
'Before the original trial in July 1998 she was told twice that if she pleaded manslaughter she would get four years, but she said she didn't see why she should plead guilty for something she had not done.' He added, 'We believe that the most probable reason for the death of the baby was natural causes, after new evidence given by a neuropathologist at the Court of Appeal.'
