Diagnosing Murder | Ep 1: The Theory

Just a warning, this episode contains content that listeners may find distressing. Picture this. A baby girl in a white jumpsuit is lying on her back on a bed. Her father jiggles her chin with his finger. She gazes up at his face with her big brown eyes. Is that the ghost of a smile? Or perhaps it's just hiccups. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We're calling this man Kabir. He's trying to prompt his daughter to smile so he can capture it on video for his family back home in India. His wife, exhausted from the day with a new baby, is asleep in the next room. It's an October night in 2021 in Melbourne's northern suburbs. The timestamp on the video, reads 9.11pm. Just four minutes later, at 9.15, all hell breaks loose. Kabir races into the neighbouring room to wake his wife. The baby is limp in his arms. Panicking, the couple call triple zero. But it's COVID and there's a long wait. So they get in the car and drive. I started giving a mouth-to-mouth. I'm not a medical expert, so I thought maybe she's not able to breathe. That's the child's mother. We're calling her Deepika. And until that point, this has been the worst moment in her life. What's going on? I just, I couldn't understand. I literally thought she's dying. But what happens in the Royal Children's Hospital that night, what some of the doctors say, and what follows from that, mean the fear and alarm of that terrible car journey will stretch out for years. Because in the case that later emerges, the doctors and the police and the Child Protection Service all agree that in the four minutes after that gentle video is shot, the father has grabbed his baby and shaken her so violently that blood vessels in her skull and the tissue behind her eyes have started to bleed. This story is about why they came to that conclusion in this case and in many, many others. I lost everything. And it went on for seven years. And he's thinking, did I cause this? Did I really cause this? How do I have faith to, you know, take my child to a hospital when the hospital's done this? If this could happen to them, I mean, maybe it happens more often than we know of. And while each case is different, each has its own unique story, behind many people's stories is one common element, a medical diagnosis of abuse. It's a diagnosis that globally has been, controversial for decades. Good evening, everyone. A raging debate in child abuse cases is getting louder. It has to do with shaken baby syndrome. Death as shaken baby syndrome. With shaken baby syndrome. An acrimonious scientific debate over the so-called shaken baby syndrome. Shaken baby syndrome. It's a collection of medical signs that most doctors have believed since the 1970s are an almost certain sign of child abuse. Abuse, they say, is still vastly underdiagnosed. But in the past, it's not. It's a collection of medical signs that most doctors have believed since the 1970s. But in the past, it's a collection of medical signs that most doctors have believed since the 1970s. But in the past 30 years, a number of serious miscarriages of justice in the US and the UK have convinced others that this diagnosis has led to false imprisonments on a vast scale. Today, many question those diagnoses, saying they've been led to innocent people being wrongfully convicted of abuse. In the minds of the dissenters, it's the idea of shaken baby syndrome itself that's dangerous. The very basis of the scientific theory that sent them to jail or jeopardised their freedom and families has been called into question. But while this debate rages offshore, in Australia, it's a different story. In hospital wards and courtrooms around the country, the evidence of a few influential child abuse specialists is still accepted, almost without question. And on their word, fathers, mothers, boyfriends, carers, are being found guilty of serious charges, including murder, then serving long sentences in prison. So we're asking the question, is shaken baby syndrome good science? Or has a bad diagnosis become an article of faith? And are innocent people being locked up when they've done nothing wrong at all? From the newsrooms of The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, this is Diagnosing Murder. I'm Michael Bachelard, and this is Episode 1, The Theory. No matter where you stand on this argument about shaken baby syndrome, everyone acknowledges that child abuse exists and that it's horrific. If I'm honest, I've really hesitated about investigating this story, because I don't want to be the guy who looks like he's excusing violence against children. But when I'm having these doubts, I just need to think of one case. Hello. Hi, I'm Rod Michael. This case. Lovely to meet you. This is Ruby. Hello. Hi, I'm Ruby. Hello. To me, it represents an injustice so clear, all on its own, that it tells me something's going terribly wrong. I'll turn this off now so that we can kind of talk about, you know, the conversation. Legal restrictions on reporting mean that even though they're keen to tell their story, we can never reveal the real names of this family. So we begin by picking fake ones. Have you discussed names that you would like to be known by? Let's do Kabir for him. You decide for me. No, I'm blank. I'm literally blank. Pick one you're good at it. Yeah, I'll just pick some Bollywood actress named Deepika. And Baby? Baby would be. Let's do Dua. Kabir and Deepika came to Australia to live the immigrant dream. So I grew up in Mumbai and practically I've lived all my life. Kabir arrived 15 years ago to go to university. Once he'd finished that, he found a good job. And then he, and more importantly his family, started looking for a wife. Soon enough, Kabir's family found a candidate. Like, what did you do for that first date? We were sitting with our mums. Deepika. Like, it was very evident that we liked each other. And although their meeting was arranged, both she and Kabir are careful to explain that they were very willing participants in their family's plans. What they are is they, I think, glorified matchmakers. It's not like, oh my God, you just have to marry a guy. This is the guy, get married, no. Deepika, metaphorically, kissed a number of frogs. I met a few guys. They were stupid. Kabir also had his false starts. But when they met each other, well. Things just clicked. Where we were talking about, about everything. Talk non-stop and you do not realise that it has been that many hours. He was not like any other guy I've met. Kabir was not like the others in one important respect. He wanted me to work, and which I, like, always wanted to do after marriage. Because in India, generally girls are told, like, be a housewife or something. But he was very open-minded. To be a housewife, and that's absolutely fine. I mean, yeah, but that's just not. That's not how I would want my partner to be with. So that's what I liked about him. And, yeah, that's why I got married to him. The wedding was in India. Then Deepika joined Kabir in Melbourne and got a job. Both were keen on having children, but they were renting. And they really wanted to buy a home of their own. But, like, with God's grace, it all worked out. And then we conceived Dua in 2020, December. And that's how I got married to Dua. One August day in 2021, Deepika's waters broke, and she went to the hospital. She was sent home to wait for the labour pains to get serious. The following morning, she was back, and they gave her drugs to speed things up. And from there, it went very fast indeed. So around 10 o'clock, they started inducing me. And within an hour, the pain just. just escalated from, I would say, 0 to 10. And after a point, like, I just had the urge to push her, like, so bad. But when I pushed her, it wasn't like, little by little, she was coming out, no. I pushed her so hard that she slipped from one end to the other, right from here to here. Imagine the amount of pressure there would be and the strength that I. I used, and she just slipped right through. It's what doctors call a precipitous birth, a first baby all out within less than four hours. And it caused Deepika serious damage. She's pretty casual when she talks about it. But Dua's head had given her mother a fourth degree tear, the worst you can get. And I didn't understand. I was like, what does that mean? It's like, we need to operate you. The tear was from a vagina, like, from there. until the bombs They stitched it up, but they did a pretty bad job. Six months later, she was back getting it fixed. They stitched me wrong, a little bit, where my, what do you call, like, stones were coming out from my vagina, if that makes sense. That just burned me down there. Deepika's precipitous birth becomes crucially important later in this story, because what happened in those few hectic minutes as the new baby Dua rushed into the world could explain why she ended up seriously ill in hospital at just nine weeks of age. Dua's birth might have been difficult, but when they looked at their newborn daughter, Kabir and Deepika were smitten. There is just this moment that I'm just looking at her and that's how I remember it. And, like, there is no sound, there is nothing else. There's nothing. There's nothing. There's nothing. There's just her in my arms. She was not the easiest baby, though. From the start, Dua cried a lot. She had, like, much difficulty just lying down. She would instantly cry. Instantly cry. It was okay as long as they held her upright. And at that point, we were like, you know what, she's just being a baby, a baby who likes to be held. But over the weeks, it became harder and harder to put her down. As soon as, I mean, we would just, put her flat on the bed, or even holding her in their arms. If she's properly flat, then, yes, she would start crying. It felt like she was in pain. They took Dua to the hospital and to a doctor, but were told not to come back. Babies cry. It's normal, the doctors said. Whenever we took her to the GP, they were like, oh, she's fine. She's just overfed. She's just overtired. It's purple crying. Purple crying is an acronym. The letters stand for purple crying. Peak of crying, unexpected, resists soothing, pain-like face, long-lasting, and evening. Doctors and nurses tell new parents this kind of crying is a normal phase. The National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome has a program called the Period of Purple Crying. This is a program that's given to new parents after the birth of a new baby, and it educates them about normal infant crying. The acronym comes from an American group called the National Center for Shaken Baby Syndrome. It's a program that's given to new parents and a powerful lobby whose ideas have spread worldwide. Parenting is not easy. It's about doing your best. Sometimes you'll feel like you're being put to the test. Your baby is crying. You've had no sleep for days. You're all alone in a moment of rage. Don't let it make you so angry you lose control, they say. And most importantly, don't shake your baby. Remember, no matter how upset you feel, shaking your baby is just not the deal. Kabeer and Deepika both remember the day they first heard these warnings. So as part of our general visits to the maternal child health nurse, we were given a pamphlet talking about it. I mean, this is what it is. Look it up. What's it all about? How early on was that? That was the first visit. First visit. So when I still remember this conversation, Kabeer was holding Dua and he was just rocking her like this. And then she went like, don't shake the baby. So like, don't, like, this is perfect, but don't shake the baby. I think they're supposed to warn. Babies are fragile and not shaking them is just good advice. Everyone that we've spoken to for this podcast agrees with that. But behind the warning on the pamphlet lies a very specific medical theory. And according to the theory, shaking causes three life-threatening clinical findings. They call these three things the triad. The triad. The triad. The triad. The so-called triad. The so-called triad. Triad of symptoms. The triad. Indicating violent shaking. The first marker of the triad is subdural haemorrhage, bleeding underneath one of the membranes over the brain. The second classic sign is retinal haemorrhage, bleeding in the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eyeball. The third is swelling of the brain, a potentially fatal condition that can cause brain damage and stop your baby breathing. The reason I'm spelling this out now is because this triad of clinical findings and their link to shaking is what this controversy is all about. The triad and its use as a diagnostic tool for abuse and murder has become the centre of a rancorous debate among experts. Proponents of the theory say that angrily shaking a baby almost inevitably causes the triad. Now, you can't actually prove these things because shaking babies to find out is an experiment you can never do. Both sides of the argument agree on that. But for decades, if a baby comes to a hospital suffering from the triad, the question of abuse will be squarely on the table. Every case is different and judged according to its own evidence. But with those injuries in place, doctors will be able to determine and will be primed to look at the last person holding the baby and ask, did they shake them? The theory also says that because the damage to the baby's head is so bad, the force applied must have involved serious violence. It's often compared to a fall off a multi-storey building or the impact of a high-speed car crash. To proponents, that suggests the shaking was intentional. What all this means is that in many cases, expert evidence from one specialist doctor under one medical theory can go a long way to persuading a jury of the guilt of the accused. Because the theory gives prosecutors everything they need. The cause of injury, the perpetrator's identity and their intention to do harm. For these reasons, one former prosecutor described shaken baby syndrome as a medical diagnosis of murder. At some point, though, other doctors and lawyers and scientists began to challenge the very basis of the theory. They looked for the evidence that shaking caused the triad and just couldn't find it. What they did find were other medical conditions, dozens of them, that they say could explain the signs of the triad without any abuse having occurred. Over the last decade, a number of studies have identified other conditions that can mimic the symptoms that make up the triad. And there's growing concern that doctors may be diagnosed in abuse too frequently. And overseas, those discoveries started to lead to exonerations. And even whole court systems that will no longer try cases based on the triad alone. We'll talk about all this later in the series. But for now, it's enough to know that in Australia, these questions are only starting to be asked. And shaken baby theory is very much alive. So when Kabir and Deepika burst into hospital one October night in 2021, the doctors quickly became suspicious of their story. Even though on their account, the night Dua got sick was an otherwise completely unremarkable evening. So everything was, just felt very, very ordinary, normal. Dua was kind of happy. She was well fed. She was okay. On that night, as was usual, Kabir was looking after Dua as Deepika rested in the neighbouring room. He quietly shot a couple of videos of the baby for their families, including the little scene you heard at the start of this episode. And then suddenly she started having some, like she would just stretch out her arms, having some seizure-like motions. And then she would stiffen up. And she did that, I think two or three times she did that. Did she make any sound in that time? I think there was a bit of a grunting sound coming in. I think that that would have been it. Because at that point she was like, she had those seizures and then she was, she wasn't moving that much. Like, I mean, how she would just normally kick her arms and legs. She wasn't doing that. Yeah, so she was a bit floppy at that point. So that's when I, I carried Dua with me from that bedroom to this bedroom. - And I have to ask, did you shake Dua? - No. - Did you rock Dua? - She was on, she was lying flat. Yeah, so that's it, no. - Kabir raced to the next room and woke Dipika. The couple got dressed and rushed Dua to the local hospital. She underwent some tests and was given antibiotics and anti-seizure drugs. Next morning, she was transferred by ambulance to the Royal Children's Hospital. On the ride, she seemed almost safe. Almost back to normal. To Dipika, it felt like magic. Even heading towards Melbourne's specialist hospital for kids had been enough to fix their daughter. Dua, it turned out, was on the mend. But for Kabir and Dipika, this drive would change their lives forever. And ultimately, these events will lead them to someone else. A talkative American lawyer called Heather Kirkwood. - Yes. of cases all over the world, Sweden, Europe, US, whatever. - Yes. How does this one compare? I'm just looking at it and thinking, I have fallen into a science fiction show. This isn't even a standard. Shaken babies are bad enough, but I'm in science fiction now. That's after the break. First off, can you just introduce yourself, your position title, and what your role in this is? That's a lot harder than you might think. I'm an attorney. Heather Kirkwood spent the first part of her career as an antitrust lawyer in Washington, D.C. There, she prosecuted big American corporations on behalf of the U.S. government when they were accused of ripping people off. In fact, Heather led the largest antitrust case brought by the U.S. government during the Reagan administration. But about 20 years ago, a family member asked Heather for some help in a child abuse case. And I have been doing that ever since. I investigated cases and have had numerous successes pretty consistently at Shirley, especially in the area of shaken baby syndrome, abusive head trauma. She's helped dozens of people who've been accused of shaking their babies. In the United States, she represents some of these people in court. For others like Kabir and Deepika, she consults. She acts pro bono, which means she doesn't charge for it. But she reads thousands of pages, helps corral medical expert reports, and pulls together dozens and dozens of documents into a coherent analysis. So that's the amount of work that goes in. Well, who the hell is going to do this? Yeah. You know, a lunatic. When you asked me, I debated between lawyer and lunatic. And that because. To Heather, Kabir and Deepika's case started off looking pretty familiar. Dua was given an MRI scan at the first local hospital. It found fluid in the subdural space of Dua's head. The doctor wasn't really sure if it was old blood or some other kind of fluid, perhaps with a little new blood. Either way, it wasn't the classic subdural haemorrhage, one of the three signs of the triad. Even so, his report posed two possible explanations. There were two explanations for the subdural fluid. And one of them was abuse. He called it a possible non-accidental injury. And that's because, according to Heather, It's almost as if the magic words of subdural haemorrhage have turned into the equivalent of a dagger through the heart. I just found a baby and he had a dagger through his heart. And the assumption would be, who did it? That line, non-accidental injury, marked Kabir and Deepika's cards even before Dua arrived by ambulance at the Royal Hospital. And as doctors there continued Dua's treatment, a second part of the triad was found: retinal haemorrhages. The third, brain swelling, never emerged. And there were no injuries to Dua's skull or her spine, and no bruises to suggest rough handling. At best, according to Heather, it was one and a half out of three triad findings, the only clear one being the retinal haemorrhages. And. They cleared up quickly as soon as possible. They cleared up quickly as they always do. And no brain damage. So where's the triad? She's back to normal within 12 hours. By then, though, a specialist group of doctors at the Royal Children's Hospital was paying close attention to Dua's case. These doctors, from a unit called the Victorian Forensic Paediatric Medical Service, are called whenever there's suspicion that a child has been abused. You'll be hearing a lot more about them later in the series. For now, it's enough to know that they turned a laser focus to the idea that Dua had been deliberately injured. In the language that's developed around this field, they said her injuries were, quote, "concerning for inflicted trauma." They thought she'd been shaken. Heather thought these doctors were ignoring a clear, obvious alternative. Birth trauma, I always say that every birth is traumatic, because if you did to your child what is done during birth, the pressures and the forces, if anyone did that to the child after birth, they should be put in prison for life, as far as I'm concerned. Some research shows that almost half of children have a subdural hemorrhage after a vaginal delivery. Most are never discovered and simply resolve themselves. But Dua's birth was much rougher than most. The fourth-degree tear indicates that a lot of force was exerted on the mother's body and also by the child's head. And then, secondly, Dua's precipitous birth. Heather describes the sheer speed of Dua's precipitous birth with a sound effect. Like, psh, the whole body came out. Right. When the doctors did scans on Dua on the night she came to hospital, they found the fluid surrounding her brain was swelling her head. Her head circumference was in the 85th percentile for a child her age. The rest of her was in the 25th percentile. Over several weeks after Dipika and Kabir presented at the hospital, this fluid built up and had to be removed four times. Heather says birth trauma could explain that fluid buildup, which would in turn explain another mystery about Dua: why she'd always been so uncomfortable lying down. And fluid could be the reason for the seizures that put Dua in hospital. As it happens, it's not just Heather who thinks this. Remember the scan at the first local hospital that originally marked Kabir and Dipika's car? Remember how I said the doctor there had identified two possible explanations for her illness? One, of course, was non-accidental injury. The second possible explanation he identified was birth trauma. But if birth trauma was the explanation for Dua's symptoms, it didn't get any serious attention. In the thousands of pages of documents I've gathered for this series, there's a line saying, quote, "There was no evidence of birth trauma." Early on, genetic and other abnormalities were explored and then rejected. So very quickly, abuse became the focus of the investigation. And within 24 hours, while Dipika was still staying with Dua in the hospital, she had a visit from the police. Dipika says at this point, she didn't think much of it. Like I said, I'm a very positive person. Police came in for an interview, they wanted to talk to me. And I said, yeah, why wouldn't I talk to you? I think they're here to help us. Police officers also turned up at the family's house the next day and interviewed Kabir. The way it was put was, like, it's part of the normal things that everyone has to just do. Soon, Dipika started getting calls from Victoria's child protection services. The involvement of child protection is the reason we can't use real names here. Under Victorian law, identifying Dua ever would mean that Ruby and I had committed a criminal offence. Anyway, at first, Dipika didn't know what these people wanted. They never said that, oh, there's a problem, that's why we are here. It was more like, we have to do this because there's a child involved and something happened to the child. We need to know what happened to the child and that's why we want to know from you. So I was, again, out of innocence, I'm like, don't you think the doctors will tell us what happened to the child? So they go like, no, you have the answer. And I was like, I don't think so I have an answer to this right now. Maybe once I get information from doctors, I'll let you know. Over the 16 days that Dua was in hospital, Dipika had multiple conversations with doctors and social workers. Sometimes the couple doubted themselves. Had they put Dua down too hard? Had they handled her too roughly? But when the doctors demonstrated to Dipika and Kabir what shaking a baby actually looked like, Then I'm like, no, that never happened. Never, never. So that's when it was like a bulb, like something just struck me. I'm like, okay, so they are thinking of a very different thing than what I'm thinking right now. Now she and Kabir knew they hadn't shaken their baby. But the investigation into them kept escalating. Firstly, police issued a search warrant for their house. Then they were ordered to appear in court for a child protection application. By then, in the hospital, the tone towards them had really changed. They were not sounding like doctors. They were more like investigators. So they were trying to collect evidence. What is mother doing right now? What is father doing right now? The way Kabir and Dipika saw it, the doctors suspected there was only one explanation for Dua's injuries, but two suspects. The doctors would ask me, could, Dipika would have done this? I still remember this doctor walking in my room and saying, Kabir must have hurt you, or he's a violent guy, so he must have done the same with Dua. You have to tell us either Dipika did it or you did it. The pressure became intense. They say the social workers made it clear that if they couldn't identify the culprit, they'd lose Dua. So at that point I was like, if you want me to lie, I'll lie. To keep our daughter with us, right? But then that person just, just backtracked saying no that's clearly you should not say what hasn't happened but what what is going to happen is they're looking for an explanation if they do not get it then then they will take Dua away. So when Dua was discharged from the hospital that's just what happened. She went not with her mother but with a foster carer. Deepika remembers their last night together. I remember staying up the whole night holding her and just looking at her. In the hospital? Yeah. I was just holding her the whole time. And when you were holding her what was what was she like? She was just looking at me and smiling. That's it. She didn't know what was coming? No. She had no clue. We were told to leave the hospital and we left. Two days later Dua was back in the Royal Children's. The foster carer brought her because fluid had once again collected in her head and she was limp and lethargic. Kabir and Deepika raced to the hospital. They'd been told to leave the hospital. They'd been told they could see their girl. It was COVID and only one parent could go into the hospital at a time. As Kabir waited outside the child protection supervisor called and said they weren't allowed to see Dua after all. I had to go and I had to tell Deepika that this is what's happened. So you had to tell Deepika? Yeah. He had to tell her that we had to leave. There is nothing we can do. At this point I offer Kabir and Deepika a break. They're looking shattered. But Kabir hasn't quite finished. I'll tell you one more thing before we just take a break. So that night when we came back, we had to leave. We had to leave. We had to leave. We had to leave. We had to leave. There's nothing we can do. One more thing before we just take a break. So that night when we came back, Deepika was in the room with the Waswansi and she didn't come out for a few hours that night. I was just holding her clothes. They got on my chest and sleep. She didn't wash them for a while because they just smelled of her daughter. Yeah. The power of the state had taken away Kabir and Deepika's three-month-old child. They had no idea how long they'd be without her. But they were determined to let Dua know they wouldn't forget her. And I still remember Kabir telling Dua that we will fight for you until, I don't know. Heather was their consultant, but the couple also hired Australian lawyers. It's expensive, but they had promised Dua. We borrowed, we begged, and we gathered whatever we could and, yeah, we fought. Once I caught a fish alive. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Then I let it go again. Why did you let it go? Because it bit my finger. So which finger did he bite? This little finger on my right. Oh, Josie! This is Josie. She's worked in libraries for 46 years. She's singing along with a class in a big, modern library in Melbourne's outer north. It's the best library to work at, actually. I bet. I've worked at lots of libraries, but this is the best one. And on this Friday morning, it's teeming with people, including plenty of kids. So would you like to just sort of start by showing us around? Yes. Yes. Where everything happened? This is the entrance of the library. We didn't bring, we didn't meet them down here. We met them, I'll show you where we met them. One day in late 2021, an Indian couple turned up at the front door looking nervous. Soon they were joined by another adult who had a baby with them. Josie knew what she was seeing. The third adult worked for the Child Protection Service. They'd picked up baby Dua from the foster carer and brought her here for a supervised visit with Kabir and Dipika. This, I'll show you their spot. They had their own little spot. They used to bring snacks and toys, lots of toys. Day after day they came, both parents, for two or three hours at a time, every single weekday. They came one day, two days. They came one week, two weeks. And usually we do see lots of families that have visitations here. But they don't usually last very long, maybe a month or so. It was enough to earn them special treatment from the staff. They stayed here. Everybody knew this was their space. And in this space, under the watchful eye of child protection workers, Dua began to grow. Kabir and Dipika documented this with a series of videos. The video collection starts showing Dua laying on the floor. So there was definitely something blocking it. - Kabir and Deepika were lurching around in the dark. They'd bent their whole lives around these visits to the library to get there every day. They found out later that the child protection supervisors watching so carefully in the library had made equally careful notes and almost every one of their reports about this little family was positive. These are some of the words they used to describe Kabir and Deepika. Attentive, affectionate, child-focused, demonstrating love and warmth towards their child. Even so, because of the suspicion based on a medical theory that they'd shaken her, month after month went by without their daughter. Dua grew from a tiny baby into an 18-month-old toddler in a mystery location with a person they'd never met. Eventually, Kabir and Deepika's lawyers applied for a job at the library. Kabir and Deepika's lawyers applied for a job at the library for what's called a contested hearing in the children's court. On the eve of that hearing, the child protection agency finally backed down. And then, yes, Dua was back. Dua was back home. After a six-month trial period with Dua at home, child protection confirmed they were finally, officially out of this family's lives. It was November 8, 2023. She was running around, playing. She was happy. She was very comfortable with us. But the system was not finished with this family yet. So I got a call from the lawyer while we were on our way back from Sydney. The day after they'd been given the all-clear, Kabir's phone rang. The family was returning from their first-ever holiday together. It was a good time. So we knew that, okay, this child protection thing is over. And that's it. We just can continue moving on. They were on the train, and the phone was dropping in and out a bit. But finally, Kabir heard what his lawyer was trying to say. The police had laid charges. He was being accused of recklessly causing serious injury to Dua. So the charges, I mean, what they allege is that I've physically harmed Dua, our daughter. Yeah, and if things go worse, I think the maximum is a 15-year term in prison. And how did you react to that? I couldn't feel the floor. Almost like fainting, sort of a feeling. Like I'm about to faint. Again, they're trying to rip our family apart. Is this a joke for them? Like, just now, Dua got her father back, mother back. Why are they, what is wrong with them? So I'm hoping someone sees this is unreasonable and has to stop. Do it is now a happy, healthy child who's coming up to her fourth birthday. But Kabir is still under a cloud. He's facing serious criminal charges, 15 years in prison for shaking his baby almost to death. Heather, the American lawyer, says somewhere in the system, among the doctors, police or charges, child protection workers. Somebody is hell-bent. Someone's hell-bent to get this family. I don't know why, but they are hell-bent. Kabir and Deepika had a delightful little girl who got sick. They took her to one of Australia's most renowned hospitals for treatment, and she got the best available. But because of a few words on a written form and a highly contested theory, they lost their daughter for 18 months. And now they're confronted with the prospect of losing Kabir, for 15 years. If they convict him, then what will I do? Like, what will Dua do? It's so hard. Like, I can't even think of it. It's just so hard. We'll come back to the story of Kabir, Deepika and Dua in a later episode, because there's much more to tell. As for the theory that got this story going, that the triad. that the triad of symptoms point to baby shaking, it's appeared on medical forms around the world for decades. It's been responsible for convicting thousands of people, convictions that in some places are now under serious question. In the next episode, we ask, how did we get here? He was pretty much like, look, man, that was a hypothesis. We now have evidence that this can happen other ways. I wouldn't hang a cat. On the evidence of shaking as presented. It's a beyond reason to assume that every person who admits to shaking a baby is lying. It's more a religious battle than a science battle. And I thought that's what I ran into. That's next time. If you found anything in this episode distressing, you can call Lifeline on. 13 11 14. Diagnosing Murder is a production of the Age and Sydney Morning Herald. It's hosted and reported by me, Michael Bachelard. Ruby Schwartz, executive produced the series. She's also the head of investigative podcasts. Julia Carr-Katzel was a producer on the series. Mixing by Martin Peralta. Editing from Patrick Elligott, the Age's editor, and Matthew Dunkley, the deputy and investigations editor. Additional editing by Catherine Winter. Special thanks to Lisa Muxworthy and Luke McElveen. Subscribe to Diagnosing Murder to make sure you don't miss an episode. Subscribe to the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald to read articles about this issue. Thanks for listening.