'It has been a nightmare ..my three children have lost out on five years of their mother' SUSPICION LIFTED BY COURT MUM ACCUSED OF HARMING NEWBORN CLEARED.

Byline: By JILLY BEATTIE

A MUM wrongly accused of harming her new-born baby girl was finally told by a judge yesterday that she is a good and fit mother.

After five years of living a nightmare, Mr Justice Gillen lifted any threat of Louise Mason's children being taken back into care.

Brave Louise, 38, from Derry, had been accused in 2002 of harming her then youngest child, a four-week-old daughter.

And even though an entire jury found her not guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to the tot, Social Services still demanded that the Masons' three daughters be adopted, including a child born after the case started.

Yesterday Louise said: "It's been a very hard five years and I'm very glad it's over and it turned out OK and we can now start to rebuild our lives together. My children have lost out five years of their mother.

"I was accused of something I didn't do and it's been an absolute nightmare. I fell into religion when my child became ill and it was my faith that kept me strong.

"I always knew in myself I didn't do it. Now the courts have recognised that too.

"I offered to take a lie detector test but the courts weren't able to do it. I just wanted to prove that I'd done nothing wrong."

Following a marathon legal battle the original care order was quashed on appeal and the case was sent back for rehearing to the High Court in Belfast.

But yesterday Mr Justice Gillen said he would not make an order in relation to any of the Mason children.

Louise thanked the doctor who helped her tell the truth and said: "He's been my guardian angel."

The consultant radiologist at Derry's Altnagelvin Hospital, known only as Doctor D, played a key role in helping overturn the devastating care orders placed on Louise.

He made contact with Louise's solicitor Carmel McGillaway after he read a newspaper report about the criminal trial Louise had to endure.

Doctor D first treated Louise's four-week-old baby daughter at Altnagelvin for a form of cancer - neuroblastoma - before the tot was transferred to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children in Belfast.

As in most cases the cancer, which attacks the nerve cells, was found in the child's stomach in an adrenal gland and caused abdominal bleeding.

But notes made by a number of other doctors who treated the bleeding stated they believed the injuries were "non-accidental", sending Louise and her oncehappy family into turmoil.

Doctor D disagreed. He revealed no one had ever sought his medical opinion and he called for independent paediatricians to give their opinion on the findings of the five doctors who gave evidence against Louise.

And one of those independent experts backed Doctor D's belief that a spontaneous haemorrhage had occurred naturally and probably caused the baby's illness.

Doctor D also raised concerns that the proper investigations for the neuroblastoma were not carried out when the child was admitted to Altnagelvin or the RVH.

The Foyle Health and Social Services Trust, whose duty was to look after the best interests of Louise and her family, said they no longer intended to provide evidence that the baby had been injured deliberately.

As a result their original allegations could no longer form part of the case.

NOW Louise has been reunited with her eldest child and youngest daughter who was born after the allegations against her first surfaced in October 2002.

She will now have increased contact with the middle child, the now five-year-old girl who beat cancer.

Louise said: "I may never get her back because she has attachment issues and has formed very strong bonds to the foster parents who have looked after her brilliantly.

"But at the moment her attachment is not to me, her mother.

"Perhaps in a year or two we might be reunited. I'm finding it very difficult but I'll take it a day at a time because I don't want to cause her any distress.

"She'll come back to me only when and if she is ready and not a day earlier." After five years with just supervised visits from their mother, the Mason girls are slowly getting to know Louise again.

Derry-based Mrs McGillaway said: "Louise was very vulnerable and totally isolated. Her name and address were given when she was charged and neighbours in the area where she lived literally didn't want to know her.

"This was probably the most difficult and complex case I've been involved in in the last 20 years of legal practise.

"The odds were stacked against us but we gave it everything we could in terms of a fight.

"I couldn't think of anything worse that could happen to a mother.

"The doctor at Altnagelvin saved the day for us because he raised the query that the child had a neuroblastoma. His help was invaluable because he guided us to which experts we should instruct.

"His intervention turned the whole thing on its head. Without Doctor D's help Louise Mason would be in a situation where those two children in particular would have been adopted. Foyle Trust served papers in relation to adoption proceedings despite a unanimous verdict from a jury acquitting Louise of any harm."

MR Justice Gillen said the case surrounding the Mason children was complex.

And he said there were grounds for relaxing the normal publicity prohibitions.

These included Louise Mason's desire for the facts to be made known, although her children's identities must be protected.

The judge said: "The workings of the family justice system are a matter of public interest.

"This has been an exceedingly complex case where differing and indeed conflicting medical evidence has been emerging throughout.

"Courts are confined to making determinations on the current expert evidence available at any given time. They do not have the luxury of hindsight."

Perhaps in a year or two we'll be reunited. I'll take it a day at a time - LOUISE MASON YESTERDAY

WHAT IS NEUROBLASTOMA

While neuroblastoma is the most common tumour in infants younger than one most children are diagnosed by two years of age.

It most commonly occurs in the abdomen but can also be found in the chest, neck and pelvis.

It is a disease in which cancer cells are found in certain nerve cells within the body.

A MISTAKE WHICH CAN CHANGE LIFE

LAWYER Sally Clark, pictured far right, from Cheshire was acquitted by the Court of Appeal for smothering her two infant sons in 2003. She died last year.

PHARMACIST Trupti Patel was also cleared in 2003 for murdering three of her young children between 1997 and 2001.

ANGELA Canning, right, had the conviction for the murder of her two baby sons in 1991 and 1999 quashed in 2004.

DONNA Anthony was set free in 2005 after six years in prison for killing her two babies in 1996 and 1997.

GIVING evidence against all four women, eminent paediatrician Sir Roy Meadow became notorious for his theory that "one sudden infant death in a family is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder unless proven otherwise".

He said the chances of two babies dying of natural causes within the same family were one in 73 million.

CAPTION(S):

SAVED: Dr D at Altnagelvin knew tot was ill; VICTORY: Louise and solicitor Carmel McGillaway; BLUNDER: Royal said injuries were deliberate; RELIEF: Louise Mason after yesterday's court ruling