Child-killer Kathleen Folbigg loses Supreme Court appeal
Child-killer Kathleen Folbigg’s 18-year fight to clear her name has been dealt yet another blow, with her guilt confirmed by one of our top courts.
Folbigg, 53, appealed after the Honourable Reginald Blanch, QC, ruled the evidence heard in a 2019 judicial inquiry made “her guilt of these offences even more certain”.
Today that decision was upheld, with three Supreme Court judges ruling there was an ample basis for that decision.
Folbigg was jailed in 2003 for at least 25 years for killing her four babies – Caleb, Patrick, Sarah and Laura – in the decade from 1989.
She has always maintained her innocence and at the judicial inquiry, her team pointed to a genetic mutation in the two girls.
Doctors who gave evidence were divided on the significance of the CALM2 gene, which can impact on the normal function of a heart.
“The scientific evidence raised a theoretical possibility that there were innocent explanations for the deaths of the two girls,” the appeal court ruled.
But the judges went on to say their deaths were at odds with other reported cases in several aspects, which included that the girls died at a younger age and while asleep, not during exertion.
“Further, the boys’ genomes provided no common cause,” the court ruled.
They said when considered with Folbigg’s diary entries there was “ample basis” for the head of the judicial inquiry to find “there was no reasonable doubt about her guilt”.
In recent weeks, 90 medical and scientific professionals have signed a petition which says the evidence as to the genetic mutation has strengthened since the inquiry and Folbigg should be pardoned.
The governor was waiting for advice from the attorney-general before making a decision on that.
