One of Australia’s best-known lawyers, former ACT attorney-general Bernard Collaery, has warned that wrongful shaken baby cases are damaging the reputation of the justice system and should prompt reform of Australia’s forensic medical agencies.

Collaery, a criminal defence lawyer who took on the federal government in the Witness K case, agrees with retired forensic pathologist Stephen Cordner that Australia must conduct an inquiry into the science underpinning the shaken baby syndrome diagnosis.

Bernard Collaery, who represented the accused in the Witness K case, and who successfully defended an early shaken baby case. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Shaken baby syndrome is a medical diagnosis that has become highly controversial overseas. Over the past four weeks, this masthead and it

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