A woman solicitor was yesterday found guilty by a jury of murdering two of her babies in the space of 14 months.
Sally Clark (35) stood with her head bowed and eyes shut in the dock at Chester Crown Court as the verdicts were returned at the end of a three-week trial.
Clark, of South Oak Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, smothered 11-week-old Christopher in December 1996, and killed Harry, aged eight weeks, by smothering or shaking him in January last year.
The jury of seven men and five women took eight hours to reach 10-2 majority verdicts. The couple's third child, a one-year-old boy, has been taken into care.
The jury was told that both babies had showed signs of previous physical abuse, including brain damage and broken ribs.
The trial judge, Mr Justice Harrison, postponed sentence after being told by prosecuting counsel Mr Robin Spencer QC that more investigations were needed into the background of the case. Defence solicitors said they would appeal the conviction.
Clark's 33-year-old husband pledged to fight to clear his wife's name. "She has been convicted on the basis of flawed evidence and statistics," he said.
The man who led the investigation, Det. Insp. John Gardner, rejected suggestions that the police should have taken more action after Christopher's death. "The decision was made that we were not looking at a criminal act at that stage," he said.