Couple win appeal over salt death

A couple who were convicted of poisoning their foster son with salt have won an appeal.

Ian Gay, 39 and his wife Angela, 40, will face a retrial after winning the appeal against their conviction for the manslaughter of three-year-old Christian Blewitt.

The couple were jailed for five years, but have now been released on bail after serving 15 months of their sentence.

Christian died in 2002 after being found unconscious at the Gays' home in Worcestershire. High levels of salt were found in the child's body.

It had been alleged that the couple had force-fed salt to Christian as a form of punishment. However, at the appeal it was claimed that the toddler could have been suffering from a rare condition, a kind of 'salt diabetes', which allowed sodium levels to build up in the body.

The couple had always insisted that they loved Christian. The toddler had been placed with the Gays for a trial adoption period along with his younger brother and sister who have both now been adopted elsewhere.

Lord Justice, sitting in London with Mr Justice Penry-Davey and Judge Ann Goddard, said that the original verdict was unsafe, but said that although the medical evidence was important, it only formed part of the evidence in the case, and ordered a retrial.

He said that the couple had taken on the care of three children with a view to adopting them, which had put them in a position of "considerable stress".

Lord Justice Richards said that difficulties that the couple had experienced with Christian had added to that stress, but did not alter the possibility that the fresh evidence could have influenced the outcome of the trial.

(KMcA)