Betrayal of innocence

摘要

It was a bizarre child abuse case. Janet stood accused of repeatedly half-suffocating her baby, Lucy (not their real names), then rushing her to hospital claiming the infant had suffered an epileptic fit. The court heard that Janet did it because she revelled in all the attention the doctors were lavishing on her and Lucy. An alert doctor had become suspicious and brought Lucy into hospital for two weeks' observation. Despite supposedly having had numerous fits at home, she didn't have a single seizure. The doctor suggested a procedure to investigate whether Lucy's fits were real, and Janet threatened to take the child home. The court decided she was carrying out a form of child abuse called Munchausen's syndrome by proxy (MSBP), in which a parent invents or induces their child's illness. She lost custody of Lucy. But Janet isn't a child abuser and has never hurt her baby. The authorities realised they had made a terrible mistake when Lucy had epileptic fits while in foster care. Eventually she was returned to her mother. "It has been a living nightmare," says Janet.