Cleared Baby Death Mother Sally Clark Dies

Sally Clark, the lawyer wrongly jailed for life for the murder of her two baby sons before being released on appeal, has died.

She was 42.

Clark, from Cheshire, spent more than three years in prison after being convicted in 1999 of killing her 11-week-old son Christopher and Harry, eight-weeks-old.

She was cleared by the Court of Appeal in 2003 after the expert medical evidence used to convict her was called into question.

"Sadly, she never fully recovered from the effects of this appalling miscarriage of justice," her family said in a statement. "She will be greatly missed by all who knew her."

Clark was found dead at the family home on Friday. The cause of death was not given.

"The matter is in the hands of the coroner and it is too early to provide any further information," the statement said.

The family's solicitor Sue Stapeley told newspapers it would be "unwise to speculate" about the cause of death. Clark was not suffering from any disease but was not in the best of health, she added.

Clark's case was one of several high-profile trials that saw disputed medical evidence used to convict mothers of killing their babies.

Clark found both her babies dead -- Christopher in his cot while her husband was out, and Harry in a bouncing chair while both parents were at home.

Evidence given at her trial claimed the chances of two cot deaths in the same family was one in 73 million. The Royal Statistical Society later said there was no statistical basis for the figure.

Clark's lawyers told the Court of Appeal that evidence showing Harry had an infection at the time of his death had been "kept secret" by a pathologist from the defence during the original trial.

Once this was discovered, new medical tests showed the baby had most likely died from an infection.