A disreputable forensic pathologist Part 1                                               

The man I am writing about is Dr. Charles Smith.  He was born in a Toronto Salvation Army hospital where he was put up for adoption three months later. After years of looking for his biological mother, he called her on her 65th birthday. She refused to take his call. Smith's adoptive family moved often. His father's job in the Canadian Forces took them throughout Canada and to Germany. He attended high school in Ottawa, and graduated from medical school at the University of Saskatchewan in 1975.

He became a forensic pathologist. His role was to investigate the corpses of human beings to determine if the deceased died as a result of a criminal act. On a typical case, he might have to decide whether a child had been shaken to death or accidentally fallen from a highchair.

He was hired by the Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children in 1979, Smith worked in surgery for a year and then moved on to pathology training. A pathologist studies diseases and illnesses by assessing matter such as cells, tissues, organs and fluids. Pathologists also examine biopsy material, and give a subsequent diagnosis as to where or not the deceased died as a result of a criminal act.

When it comes to preparing autopsy reports, the field of pathology can be a subjective one. It's based on research and opinion, and it's especially controversial in Canada, where there is no formal training or certification process for that kind or work. Only a handful of practitioners in Ontario are entrusted with the job and they've learned their profession by doing the work as a pathologist.

With child victims, forensic analysis is rarely cut and dried. It can take an infant up to 24 hours to die of a shaking incident, which is a crime that doesn't leave evidence the way a regular killing might.

After his initial training at Sick Kids, as the Toronto hospital is known, Smith began conducting child autopsies in 1981. He started with children who had died of accidental and natural causes. By the late '90s, Smith saw more forensic child cases than any other pathologist across the country. That could be because Toronto is the largest city in Canada.

Smith's unit used arrest warrants to reinvestigate cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). He oversaw the autopsies of exhumed babies that led to new murder charges.

For 24 years, Smith worked at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. In the hospital's pediatric forensic pathology unit, he conducted more than 1,000 child autopsies. Dr. Charles Smith was once considered top-notch in his field of forensic child pathology. In 1999, a Fifth Estate documentary singled him out as one of four Canadians with this rare expertise.

What wasn’t known then was that he had bungled some of his investigations to the detriment of the families of the dead children.

In 1991, a family in Timmins, Ontario was the first to raise questions about Smith's work. He had concluded their one-year-old baby had died from being shaken. The child had been under the care of a babysitter who said the baby had fallen down stairs.

In court, experts challenged Smith's opinion, which had resulted in the babysitter's charge of manslaughter. The judge in the case stated Smith should have taken other causes into consideration.

In court, experts challenged Smith's opinion, which had resulted in the babysitter's charge of manslaughter. The judge in the case stated Smith should have taken other causes into consideration.

In one such case, Smith appeared before a court in the death of six-month-old Sara Podniewicz. He concluded she had been dead for up to 15 hours before her parents reported the death. The parents had told a 911 operator the girl had died just moments before. Smith's analysis led to second-degree murder charges being laid

In December 2009, Sherry Sherrett-Robinson was acquitted of killing her son whom Smith had concluded died of asphyxia a decade earlier. Smith suggested Sherrett-Robinson's son, Joshua, suffered a skull fracture and neck hemorrhages. Ontario's chief forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Pollanen, however, told the Ontario Court of Appeal that he did not find a skull fracture and noted the neck hemorrhages were caused during the autopsy process conducted by Smith.

Once the most prolific pathologist, Smith began getting a reputation for late cases, and his disorderly desk produced samples that had gone missing.

In 2002, he received a caution from the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. The college said he was being "overly dogmatic" and had a "tendency towards overstatement."

In June 2005, Dr. Barry McLellan, Ontario's chief coroner, started the review of 45 child autopsies conducted by Smith between 1991 and 2002. The review, released in April 2007, found that Smith had made mistakes in 20 cases involving the deaths of children. The review cast doubt on criminal convictions in 13 of the cases.

"I am very surprised with the overall results of the review, and concerned," McLellan said. "In a number of cases, the reviewers felt that Dr. Smith had provided an opinion regarding the cause of death that was not reasonably supported by the materials available for review."

The chief coroner said the results of the review were being shared with defence and Crown attorneys involved in all of the relevant criminal cases.

After resigning from Sick Kids in 2005, Smith accepted a pathology position in Saskatoon. He was fired after three months. A tribunal later reinstated him, but without a licence, Smith was unable to practise.

Smith told media his marriage ended in light of stress from the highly publicized events. He had lived with his wife and two children on a farm north of Newmarket, Ont.

As a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Smith says he has been fuelled by his life's purpose was finding out the truth for parents who have lost their babies.

Smith no longer practices pathology. An Ontario coroner's inquiry reviewed 45 child autopsies in which Smith had concluded the cause of death was either homicide or criminally suspicious. Of those cases, it was determined that there were questionable conclusions of foul play in 20 of the cases — 13 of which had resulted in criminal convictions. After the review's findings were made public in April 2007, Ontario's government ordered a public inquiry into the doctor's practices.

That inquiry, led by Justice Stephen Goudge and concluding in October 2008, found that Smith actively misled his superiors, made false and misleading statements in court and exaggerated his expertise in trials he testified in.

Far from being an expert in forensic child pathology, it was determined that Smith lacked basic knowledge about forensic pathology.

It is beyond my understanding as to why the people in the television show. Fifth Estate praised this medical quack.

 Smith was adamant that his failings were never intentional," Justice Goudge responded in his report. “I simply cannot accept such a sweeping attempt to escape moral responsibility.”

When this quack made that statement, he was trying to hide the fact that he was careless in his work. Unfortunately, the police, the crown attorneys (prosecutors) and judge and juries accepted the testimony of this quack as if his testimony was sent from up high.

Two years later, the Ontario government announced compensation for families affected by Smith's mistakes. Individuals would be entitled to a maximum of $250,000 each. A child of someone wrongfully accused who was removed from the family home as a result was entitled to up to $25,000. A family member directly affected by a relative's involvement in the criminal justice system is entitled to up to $12,500. Legal costs incurred by the wrongly accused were also be reimbursed.

Some have accused Smith of taking on a role larger than pathologist. The lawyer for Brenda Waudby said he was on a crusade and acted more like a prosecutor. Waudby was convicted in the murder of her daughter after Smith analyzed the case.

A pubic-like hair found on her daughter disappeared during Smith's investigation. It was discovered he had kept the hair in his office before police found it five years later. In the end, the charges against Waudby were dropped and the child's babysitter was convicted.

Smith told the media lampooning him that he had “a thing against people who hurt children.” He welled up when speaking about a mother looking for the cause of her baby's death.

He was once considered the most prolific pathologist in Canada however,  Smith began getting a reputation for late cases, and his disorderly desk produced samples that had gone missing.

In 2002, he received a caution from the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. The college said he was being "overly dogmatic" and had a "tendency towards overstatement."

"I am very surprised with the overall results of the review, and concerned," McLellan said. "In a number of cases, the reviewers felt that Dr. Smith had provided an opinion regarding the cause of death that was not reasonably supported by the materials available for review."

The chief coroner said the results of the review were being shared with defence and Crown attorneys involved in all of the relevant criminal cases.

After resigning from Sick Kids in 2005, Smith accepted a pathology position in Saskatoon. He was fired after three months. A tribunal later reinstated him, but without a licence, Smith was unable to practise.

Smith told media his marriage ended in light of stress from the highly publicized events. He had lived with his wife and two children on a farm north of Newmarket, Ontario.

Am I tearful when I have learned about his fate? Not in my lifetime.

The next article will be about some of his victims and how his wrongful conclusions destroyed their lives.