Wrongful Arrest Robbed Me Of Chance To Grieve For 3-Year-Old Son, Says Mum

A grieving mother has told of her agony when she was wrongly arrested on suspicion of murder after her three-year-old son died of a chest infection.
















Alfie died of a chest infection aged three.
















Abby Podmore says she was robbed of the chance to say goodbye.

Abby Podmore described how her ‘horrifying’ ordeal had robbed her of the chance to grieve for Alfie, who passed away in his sleep.

An investigation has now been launched by the Independent Police Complaints Committee.

The 20-year-old dental nurse has also received an apology from the hospital which mistakenly sent Alfie home after failing to spot the serious lung infection that killed him.

Ms Podmore told an inquest: ‘I couldn’t believe what was happening – my son had just died and I was being treated like a criminal. Looking back, I feel like I was robbed of a chance to say goodbye to Alfie.

‘I wanted to be with his body, just wanted to be with him.’

The boy was taken ill at nursery on February 2 and seen at Birmingham Children’s Hospital the following day but was discharged after medics said he was only suffering from a gastric virus.

They prescribed antacid medication rather than antibiotics that might have saved him from an ‘aggressive’ bacterial infection of pneumonia.

Alfie died at home on February 6 despite his mother’s attempts to revive him.

But when an ambulance arrived, it was joined by 15 police officers in two riot vans to detain Ms Podmore and her partner.

At Birmingham coroners’ court, Judge Aidan Cotter condemned police for the way in which they showed ‘no compassion’ and that, in her shoes, he ‘probably would have gone round and thumped a police officer’.

Det Insp Moira Blackburn said police arrested Ms Podmore after a neighbour falsely claimed the mother and her partner had been heard arguing.

Recording a narrative verdict, Mr Cotter said Alfie died as a result of failings by the hospital – and that doctors had made a clinical misjudgment.

Hospital bosses accepted liability and apologised to Ms Podmore, insisting lessons had been learnt.

Faster Justice Does Not Have To Be Worse

The very public dispute between Eoin McLennan-Murray, of the Prison Governors' Association, and John Thornhill, of the Magistrates' Association, betrays the sectional interests of both sides.









John Thornhill of the Magistrates Association denied the judiciary were politically pressured.

Mr Thornhill maintains that magistrates' courts have done a stellar job in the wake of the riots and suggests lessons for the future. Mr McLennan-Murray, whose members have to cope with the consequences of the courts' decisions, says magistrates have indulged in a sentencing "feeding frenzy", pandering to popular emotion.

As a newspaper, we share Mr McLennan-Murray's qualms about the speed with which justice is being dispensed and the rate of imprisonment. We also ask whether custodial sentences are the best way of punishing rioters and, indeed, whether magistrates are on top form at, say, 2am. Justice Ministry figures show that almost 70 per cent of those brought to courts since the riots have been given jail sentences or remanded in custody; the figure for 2010 was 10 per cent. This is a big difference, even if some harsher sentences are already being reversed on appeal.

But Mr Thornhill has a point that should not be ignored, just because other questions are raised. In three weeks, magistrates have heard several thousand cases, by dint of working longer hours and requiring greater efficiency from all concerned. Yes, there have been problems – missing papers, poorly briefed lawyers and absent probation officers – but these, regrettably, are not unusual.

Against that, there have also been benefits in accelerating the process: events were still fresh in everyone's memory and the link between offence and court, often blurred by delay, was clear. Here, Mr Thornhill is right. Extraordinary circumstances have shown how the ordinary could be radically improved.

Headteacher's Killer Back In Jail

The widow of murdered headmaster Philip Lawrence told last night of her anguish after learning his freed killer had been returned to jail to protect the public after an alleged robbery.











Widow Frances Lawrence holds a picture of her husband Philip who was killed.

Learco Chindamo was arrested just four months after he was released from prison and controversially all­ow­ed to stay in Britain after successfully fighting a deportation bid.

Shocked Frances Lawrence described the incident as “very, very distressing on many levels”.

At her home in Ham, west London, she said: “I can’t understand why Chindamo was in a position to do what he allegedly did when he is supposed to be on licence.

“He always swore he would spend his life living quietly and atoning. I understood he was supposed to be in rehabilitation.”

Detectives detained Chindamo, 30, on Wednesday at his home in south London after studying CCTV footage following the mugging of man at a cashpoint in Camden, north London.

An inquiry is expected to be launched into the monitoring of the killer who has been staying in a hostel in Catford, south London, since his release in July after serving 14 years for the knife murder of Mr Lawrence.

The arrest will raise fresh questions about the watch kept on offenders released back into communities.

It will also put pressure on David Cameron to honour a pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act.

At an immigration tribunal in 2007 the Home Office warned that Chindamo “represents a genuine and present and sufficiently serious threat to the public in principle as to justify his deportation”.

But a judge ruled he could not be deported to Italy, where he lived until the age of five, because it would breach his human rights.

At the time, Mr Cameron said the Act “has to go”, saying: “Abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.

“The fact that the murderer of Phil­ip Lawrence can’t be deported flies in the face of common sense. What about the rights of Mrs Lawrence?’’

The Bill of Rights was a key part of the Conservative election manifesto. But the Coalition so far has committed only to setting up a commission to review the legislation.

Chindamo was jailed indefinitely for the murder of father-of-four Mr Lawrence outside St George’s Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale, West London, in 1995.

The 48-year-old was stabbed after going to help a pupil who was attacked by a gang. Among the attackers was Chindamo, then 15.

The killer vowed to live “quietly and decently” when he moved to a secure probation hostel after his release.

Phone Hacking: Met Police detective Arrested

Policeman suspected of leaking details of hacking investigation as force also confirms arrest of 35-year-old man.












Phone hacking: the man has not been charged but he has been suspended by the Metropolitan police.

A police detective has been arrested on suspicion of leaking details about Scotland Yard's phone-hacking investigation.

The man has not been charged but he has been suspended by the Metropolitan police.

The Met also on Friday arrested a 35-year-old man, who Sky News named as former News of the World reporter Dan Evans, on suspicion of phone hacking. He has been released on police bail.

Evans was suspended by the paper more than a year ago after being named in a civil case against the now defunct tabloid's publisher, News International subsidiary News Group Newspapers, brought by interior designer Kelly Hoppen.

Sue Akers, the force's deputy assistant commissioner, who is leading the investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World, said: "I made very clear when I took on this investigation the need for operational and information security. It is hugely disappointing that this may not have been adhered to."

Akers added: "The MPS [Met] takes the unauthorised disclosure of information extremely seriously and has acted swiftly in making these arrests."

A spokesperson for Guardian News & Media, which publishes the Guardian, declined to comment on reports that the leaks had been to the Guardian, and said: "We note the arrest of a Scotland Yard detective on suspicion of misconduct in a public office relating to unauthorised disclosure of information.

"On the broader point raised by the arrest, journalists would no doubt be concerned if conversations between off-the-record sources and reporters came routinely to be regarded as criminal activity. In common with all news organisations we have no comment to make on the sources of our journalism."