TEXT ON SCREEN: HE WAS THE FIRST TO IDENTIFY SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME

RETRO REPORT PRODUCER: You’re referred to as the grandfather of shaken baby syndrome.

NORMAN GUTHKELCH: Yes. Well, I didn’t in fact invent that name. At least, I don’t think I did.

TEXT ON SCREEN: HIS STORY BEGINS 100 YEARS AGO.

NORMAN GUTHKELCH: Full name is Arthur Norman Guthkelch, but I’ve always gone by Norman, because my father’s best friend was called Norman, and Norman was killed in World War One the day I was born.

TEXT ON SCREEN: NORMAN GUTHKELCH WOULD GO ON TO BECOME THE FIRST PEDIATRIC NEUROSURGEON IN GREAT BRITAIN.

CURIOUS ABOUT BABIES WHO WERE COMING INTO HIS HOSPITAL WITH UNEXPLAINED BRAIN INJURIES, HE NOTICED A PATTERN.

NORMAN GUTHKELCH: Social workers had noticed that in our area of England, one of the ways you punished a recalcitrant baby was to shake it. Not, perhaps, very hard. Sometimes people lost their tempers, of course, and shook too much. The condition seemed to be restricted to when parents were prepared to confess to shaking.

TEXT ON SCREEN: HIS 1971 PAPER WOULD BECOME THE BASIS FOR SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME.

ARCHIVAL:
NEWS REPORT: Literally it can take one shake, and a baby can suffer serious brain damage.

TEXT ON SCREEN: SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME LEADS TO SCORES OF ARRESTS FOR CHILD ABUSE EACH YEAR.

ARCHIVAL:
NEWS REPORT: A Queensbury man is in jail tonight accused of shaking and injuring his infant son.

ARCHIVAL:
NEWS REPORT: A daycare provider accused…

ARCHIVAL:
NEWS REPORT: A five-month old dead…

ARCHIVAL:
NEWS REPORT: A man is behind bars accused of violent…

RETRO REPORT PRODUCER: Were you surprised to learn that prosecutors were using your science as a basis to convict people?

NORMAN GUTHKELCH: Yes. Absolutely and utterly shocked. Desperately disappointed. I was against defining this thing as a syndrome in the first instance. To go on to say, every time you see it, it’s a crime – it became a sort of easy way in to jail.

TEXT ON SCREEN: TODAY, DR. GUTHKELCH REVIEWS SHAKEN BABY CASES WHERE HE BELIEVES THE CAREGIVERS HAVE BEEN WRONGLY ACCUSED.

HE JUST TURNED 100 YEARS OLD.

(END)