Who is Dr Andreas Marnerides?
Dr Andreas Marnerides is a consultant paediatric pathologist based in London. He gave evidence for the Crown at the original trial, interpreting post-mortem findings across several counts and endorsing, in part, the prosecution theory of air embolism and other mechanisms of deliberate harm.
What he told the jury
For a number of counts, Dr Marnerides described post-mortem skin findings and vascular patterns as consistent, in his view, with air embolism or with other forms of deliberate harm. On Child O he described hepatic (liver) findings that the Crown framed as deliberate trauma. On gastric findings he accepted prosecution theories of over-inflation or deliberate air administration via nasogastric routes.
What the Panel says about the same material
The Shoo Lee International Expert Panel, reviewing the same post-mortem records, reaches a different view on each of these points. Hepatic findings in neonates vigorously resuscitated by chest compressions are well-described in the paediatric-pathology literature; the pattern described on Child O is, the Panel concludes, consistent with CPR rather than deliberate trauma. Gastric over-distension in small babies receiving bag-mask ventilation or CPAP is routine. Skin findings do not meet the diagnostic criteria of Dr Lee’s 1989 paper.
The Panel’s case-by-case review concludes that no post-mortem finding across the indictment is unique to, or highly specific for, deliberate harm.
Read alongside
the post-mortem evidence page, the air-embolism page, the Panel press conference.