{"id":68629,"date":"2025-05-02T14:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T14:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/68629\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T14:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T14:40:10","slug":"birmingham-couple-cleared-of-killing-baby-boy-by-lying-on-top-of-him-after-five-year-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/68629\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham couple cleared of killing baby boy by lying on top of him after five-year investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Cahill, 50, and Jodie Harris, 33, from Kings Norton, denied manslaughter and child cruelty\"BirminghamBirmingham Crown Court (Image: Nick Wilkinson\/Birmingham Live)<\/p>\n

A mum and dad have been cleared of unlawfully killing their newborn baby boy by lying on top of him following a five-year investigation.<\/p>\n

Lennon Cahill tragically died in November 2020 aged just three days.<\/p>\n

Paul Cahill, 50, and Jodie Harris, 33, both from Kings Norton<\/a>, were subsequently charged with manslaughter and child cruelty.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Gang jailed for nearly 120 years for murdering dad in Birmingham park for less than \u00a3500<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

They reiterated their not guilty pleas at Birmingham Crown Court<\/a> today, Friday, May 2.<\/p>\n

Sally Howes KC, prosecuting, confirmed that the Crown formally offered no evidence on each offence after reviewing expert evidence and determining ‘there will not be a realistic prospect of conviction’.<\/p>\n

Judge Paul Farrer KC acquitted both Mr Cahill and Ms Harris.<\/p>\n

The manslaughter charge alleged each defendant ‘unlawfully killed Lennon Cahill by gross negligence’.<\/p>\n

In particular, the offence stated they failed to adequately monitor him, caused him to lie in a position ‘deleterious’ (harmful) to his health and also failed to correct his position.<\/p>\n

Further, the charge asserted Mr Cahill and Ms Harris positioned themselves in a harmful way to Lennon and failed to appreciate each other was positioned in a harmful way to the baby.<\/p>\n

Ms Howes confirmed a post-mortem examination concluded Lennon’s cause of death as unascertained, but she added there were ‘strong indicators suggestive of an overlaying asphyxial mechanism’.<\/p>\n

She said the evidence was mainly circumstantial, adding there were ‘other concerning features’ found in the post-mortem including pneumonia, while one expert suggested there had been ‘under-feeding’.<\/p>\n

Ms Howes told the court ‘the bar is very high for gross negligence’ and must involve an ‘obvious risk of death’ which was clear at the time.<\/p>\n

She added: “Hindsight, no matter how sorrowful and bitter, is not enough. The circumstances have to be truly, exceptionally bad.”<\/p>\n

Ms Howes summarised the opinion of a defence expert with a ‘particular interest in co-sleeping’, who concluded infants were very unlikely to be caused death or harm by co-sleeping in most cases.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor added it would have been ‘very difficult and possibly disingenuous to go behind’ the expert opinion.<\/p>\n

Ms Howes said: “The Crown took the view that, apart from being able to establish a duty of care, all other limbs would have fallen short.”<\/p>\n

The second charge of child cruelty alleged Mr Cahill and Ms Harris wilfully neglected Lennon.<\/p>\n

However, Ms Howes confirmed one of the experts had concluded the baby had been fed overnight.<\/p>\n

She then moved to a concern surrounding the state of their house at the time.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor said: “There was evidence of social services involvement that six days prior to the death of the child when the house was considered to be a suitable standard for child habitation.<\/p>\n

“It would be perhaps difficult for the Crown to suggest just filth would be enough for wilful neglect.<\/p>\n

“Just because there’s a filthy, dirty house it doesn’t mean to say the child isn’t being looked after within the filthy and dirty house.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Cahill, 50, and Jodie Harris, 33, from Kings Norton, denied manslaughter and child crueltyBirmingham Crown Court (Image:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,10386,748,393,4884,16243,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-68629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-crown-court","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-kings-norton-and-brandwood","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114438761616421499","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}