Charles Randal Smith is a former Canadian pathologist known for performing flawed child autopsies that resulted in wrongful convictions.
As the head forensic pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, from 1982 to 2003, Smith performed more than 1,000 child autopsies.
[1] In 2002, Smith was reprimanded with a caution by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons for his work on three suspicious-death cases, and in 2003 he was removed from performing autopsies.
[2] In June 2005, the chief coroner of Ontario ordered a review of 44 autopsies carried out by Smith, thirteen of which had resulted in criminal charges and convictions.
[5][6] Smith proclaimed that he had "a thing against people who hurt children", while critics said that "he was on a crusade and acted more like a prosecutor" than a pathologist.
In 1992, the Ontario Coroner's Office created a pediatric forensic pathology unit at Hospital for Sick Children and Smith was appointed director.
[8] Laidley said the boy had jumped off the couch, slipped, and struck his head on a marble coffee table, but she was arrested after Smith told police that such injuries could not result in death.
Marie was found guilty of the first-degree murder of his niece, Valin Johnson, after a two-and-a-half week trial in September 1994.
[10] On the morning of January 23, 1996, Sherry Sherret found her four-month-old son Joshua lying in his bed not breathing.
[11] Her older child was removed by Children's Aid, and in order to get him out of foster care, she agreed to give him up for adoption and have no physical contact with him until he was 18.
[12] On December 7, 2009, the Ontario Court of Appeal exonerated Sherret, stating that it was "profoundly regrettable that due to flaws in pathological evidence" she was wrongfully convicted.
[13] Brenda Waudby of Peterborough was charged with beating her 2-year-old daughter Jenna to death on January 22, 1997, on the basis of Smith's professional opinion as to what time the injuries were inflicted.
[14] Louise Reynolds was a 28-year-old single mother living in Kingston, Ontario, charged with second degree murder for having killed her seven-year-old daughter Sharon in 1997 by stabbing her more than 80 times with a pair of scissors.
[16] Dinesh Kumar was a 26-year-old Punjabi immigrant to Canada who was charged with second degree murder in the 1992 death of his infant son.
[22] Around the time that his pathology work at Sick Children's received heavy scrutiny, Smith's marriage collapsed.
[23] He pled guilty to a charge of unprofessional conduct for his failure to disclose he was under investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan.
[24] On February 1, 2011, Smith was stripped of his licence during a hearing by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario examining "disgraceful conduct".
[26] Justice Goudge's report, released on October 1, 2008 concluded that there were serious problems with the way suspicious deaths involving children are handled in Ontario.