Coniston mom anxious to testify at public inquiry

BY KEITH LACEY

Lianne Thibeault is “counting down the days” to when she can speak on the record about how former Ontario pathologist Dr. Charles Smith devastated her life.

Eleven years after Smith accused Thibeault of being responsible for murdering her son, Nicholas, on Nov. 30. 1995, it’s been revealed Thibeault’s case was one of 13 where a provincial review confirmed Smith’s findings were “fundamentally flawed”.

The review states Smith erred in at least 13 cases where he accused caretakers of foul play in the deaths of children.

Many parents and caretakers accused by Smith were charged criminally and many spent time in jail.

Premier Dalton McGuinty has ordered a full public inquiry. Smith had his license to practice medicine suspended in Ontario since the government ordered a review of 40 cases he conducted two years ago.

Although the Greater Sudbury mother was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing in her 11-month-old son’s death, she had to live with the stigma of being accused of killing her son for several months. She was also not allowed to be alone with her newborn daughter for 10 months.

Nicholas’s death was ruled as sudden unexplained death. Smith had concluded that the baby died as a result of brain swelling consistent with blunt force injury.

Thibeault says being publicly vindicated is a hollow victory, but rewarding nonetheless.

“I certainly wasn’t jumping for joy when I got the report from the Chief Coroner’s office late last week because we’ve known all along Smith had screwed this up, and I’d been cleared of doing anything wrong a long, long time ago,” she said. “But to be vindicated in the public eye after all these years is sweet because I’ll be able to send a copy of the report to some choice people who had so many bad things to say to me all those years ago.”

Thibeault can’t forget how police officers and workers with the Children’s Aid Society accused her of being involved in her son’s death.

Considering so many people have been falsely accused and some have spent long periods in jail, Thibeault said she believes Smith should be held accountable for his actions and should go to jail. But she is not holding her breath waiting for that to happen.

One man from Sault Ste. Marie was recently vindicated after being found guilty of raping a family member and spent more than a decade behind bars based largely on evidence provided by Smith, which has also been found tainted and flawed.

“I want people to know what it’s like to be accused of killing your own child when you had nothing to do with it,” Thibeault said. “I want people to know what it’s like to not be able to spend the first six weeks with your second child after losing your first, based on lies and shoddy work by a man who was given free reign to destroy lives.

“Dr. Charles Smith was responsible for this nightmare.”

She credits her father, Maurice Gagnon, for being one of the key players in fighting to bring Smith’s work under review. Gagnon spent his life savings and wouldn’t stop hounding the government to look into the work done by Smith as evidence continued to mount that his work could not be trusted, she said.

“I’m sure Charles Smith will never forget my name or my father’s,” she said.

Gagnon said he will never understand why Smith was given the power to make his rulings without anyone questioning his work even as questions started to arise.

“In the 1980s and early 1990s, you have to remember child abuse became a lightning rod...he used the issue of child abuse for personal notoriety and advancement,” he said. “Why he reached his conclusions and falsely accused so many people, including my daughter, I don’t think we’ll ever really know.

“The system allowed him to do what he did,” he said. “There were no checks and balances in place at the Chief Coroner’s office, and he was allowed to do what he did. Everything he determined was rubber stamped.”