SIDS: Australia: Inquest questions, Chapman

   HELEN KEMPTON   |   October 12, 2010 08.08am

 

 

THE father of a seven-week-old baby boy who died in 2008 yesterday told an inquest into his death that his estranged wife had described how his son stared into her eyes as she smothered him.

Geoff Chapman, 48, of Burnie, told coroner Olivia McTaggart his wife Katrina had confessed to him that she had smothered their son Lennox Paul Chapman on December 2, 2008.

Mr Chapman told the inquest his wife had told him she had taken the infant to bed and put her hand over his mouth and nose.

"She told me his little eyes kept staring at her, saying, 'What are you doing Mummy'," Mr Chapman said.

"He had the most gorgeous eyes and I knew that she was telling the truth."

The inquest heard Mr Chapman went to the police a few days later.

"I couldn't live with that on my conscience," he told the inquest.

Mr Chapman said he started to question whether his son had died from sudden infant death syndrome after overhearing his mother-in-law telling his wife she needed to stick to her story or face time in jail.

"I was coming in from the front deck when I heard it," he told the inquest in Burnie.

He said his mother had heard the same snippet of conversation as she came into the room with washing.

Mr Chapman told counsel assisting the coroner, Simon Brown, that his wife had given him alternate stories of what had happened on the day their son died.

He told the inquest his wife had phoned him at work on the day of the baby's death.

"She said, 'Lennox is bleeding, he is turning blue and has blood on him'," he told the inquest.

Mr Chapman went home and found his wife kneeling over their son on the tile floor.

"She was sobbing and crying hysterically," he said.

Mr Chapman said he started giving his baby mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

He told Mr Brown the baby was cold and a "funny grey colour". He said he could not hear him breathing.

Mr Chapman said that when the ambulance arrived at their West Ridgley home, Katrina told him she had taken the baby to bed but he was blue when she awoke.

He told the court that a couple of seconds later Katrina said the baby was in his cot and she had found him "blue" when she checked on him.

Mr Chapman said that his wife later talked of dropping the baby in the bath.

He told the inquest that, at first, he had thought the conflicting stories were the result of deep distress.

"It was horrible for both of us. I tried to reassure her that sometimes little bodies just stop," he said.

"I believed it was SIDS and that she was beating herself up. I was warned by medical professionals that both parents often blamed themselves.

"I still wonder what would have happened if I had stayed home that day and not gone to work. I wonder that every single day."

Mr Chapman told the inquest that some of his estranged wife's friends told him that Katrina Chapman had told them that she was responsible for Lennox's death.

The inquest will continue today.

SIDS: Chapman, Tasmania

   NICK CLARK   |   October 05, 2010 08.18am

THE mother of a seven-week-old baby boy gave two different reasons why her son might have died suddenly, a Tasmanian inquest was told yesterday.

Coroner Olivia McTaggart heard evidence that family members had been told by the mother the child had been dropped in a bath and that could have been the reason for his death.

She also heard that later, at a family gathering, the mother had said she believed she had smothered the infant while they were asleep in the same bed.

Ms McTaggart was investigating the death of Lennox Paul Chapman, who died in Burnie on December 2, 2008.

The evidence on the reasons for the death given by the mother, Katrina Chapman, of Ridgley, near Burnie, emerged under cross-examination of the baby's maternal grandmother Andrea Pisano by counsel assisting the coroner, Simon Brown, in the Launceston Magistrates Court.

Mrs Pisano said Ms Chapman told her nearly a week after the death that she had dropped him in the bath and that it was probably the reason why he died. She said Ms Chapman had been worried she would go to jail.

Until then, Mrs Pisano had believed the baby was in his cot and had died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Several days later the boy's father Geoff Chapman called Mrs Pisano and told her to go to his home.

"When we got there Geoff was standing in the lounge area and he said 'Tell them' and Katrina was sitting on the couch and she said 'It was me, I smothered him'," Mrs Pisano said.

She said her daughter told her the baby had been in bed with her.

Mrs Pisano said her husband had rung a lawyer to get legal advice.

There was also a later discussion.

"She said 'I had Lennox in bed with me and I smothered him I woke up and he was blue and I had my hand on his face'," Mrs Pisano testified.

"That was new to you?" Mr Brown asked.

"Yes," she said.

Mrs Pisano, who sobbed during her testimony, said a psychologist told her Ms Chapman, who was subsequently admitted to a clinic, was delusional.

She said her daughter had been a drug user for 15 years and had used cannabis and Mersyndol during the pregnancy.

"She told me his [the baby's] face kept changing and that he didn't look like a baby and that she was frightened of him," she said.

She said her daughter was convinced smoking cannabis was responsible for the baby being born with "drop" ears.

"She was obsessed about his ears and thought he was deaf and it was all her fault and was crying all the time," she said.

"She was not connecting emotionally with him because of his ears and was convinced he was deaf.

"It was just cruel to watch."

Mrs Pisano said the boy had been "unusually placid" but her daughter was excited when he let out a little giggle.

She told her daughter a fortnight before the baby died not to take him to bed with her.

Mrs Pisano denied a statement from the baby's paternal grandmother Beverley Chapman that she had overheard her tell Katrina: "We've got to get the story straight or you'll be going to jail for 22 years if we don't."

"Definitely not. That is absolute rot, totally untrue," Mrs Pisano said.

She said she had never seen her daughter handle the baby roughly.

She rang her daughter at 11am on the day the baby died because she was worried she was alone after her husband went back to work, she said.

"She said she was going to feed Lennox and go to bed," she said.

Mrs Pisano said Ms Chapman had never indicated whether the dropping into the bath was deliberate or accidental.

The coronial hearing will resume in Burnie at 10am on October 11.

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2010/10/05/176961_scalesofjustice.html