Family and women?s right?s campaigner Sheelagh Cooper has taken a wait-and-see approach to find out why the Court of Appeal handed down a manslaughter conviction for baby killer Karim Salahuddin, has learned.

And a young mother ? who lost her son in a case of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) has spoken of her anguish and sympathy for the Cassidy family in the wake of the court?s decision.

Salahuddin?s murder conviction was thrown out this week and a ten year sentence for manslaughter handed down after defence lawyers presented ?new? evidence from a forensic pathologist and a biomechanical engineer who cast doubt on SBS.

Mrs. Cooper, chairman of the Coalition for the Protection of Children, said she hoped the Appeals Court had not taken the local judiciary back 15 years to a time when SBS was not recognised as a legitimate syndrome.

?We have a severe problem if the judgement was based on any kind of rethinking of the basis for determining shaken baby syndrome,? Ms Cooper said. ?The defence in this case suggested the medical community was divided on the question of what constitutes shaken baby syndrome. This was a gross exaggeration.?

Mrs. Cooper argued that many doctors agreed what kind of injuries constituted SBS deaths, adding: ?The Coalition has fought for several years to educate the public about SBS and to educate the courts and judiciary in this area. Cases like this risk undermining that hard work and sending us back 15 years in time.?

Attorney General Larry Mussenden yesterday refused to comment on the decision.

Roshea Young-Lewis told the ruling has flooded her with a sense of injustice. ?When I read the most recent verdict I felt it is more than a slap in the face and started to relive my own excruciating experience in losing my son,? Mrs. Young-Lewis said.

?I am outraged and my heart aches for what was and what will no longer be.?

On December 14, 1999 Jermaine Pearman and Sharina Anne Tuzo were sentenced for killing Mrs. Young-Lewis? five-month-old son Saed.

Pearman, who admitted to manslaughter, was sentenced in the Supreme Court in 1999 to 12 years, while Tuzo, who was found to be grossly negligent for failing to get medical attention for the child, was locked up for six years.

Saed suffered a catalogue of injuries including bruising, biting, a broken collar bone and fractured skull while Pearman and Tuzo were supposed to be looking after him at a house in Bob?s Valley Lane, Sandys Parish in August 1997.

?The judicial system has now become judge and jury to this most heinous crime and deemed it fit to disregard the feelings of all those who have been deeply effected by these events.

?Beautiful lives have been stolen, snatched away, but who cares? Who really cares? Who hears our cries? Who shares our tears?? she asked.

However, since Pearman was released from prison in August Mrs. Young-Lewis perpetually lives in fear of seeing the pair.

?I?m mad and irritated,? she said. ?What am I supposed to do when I see these individuals??

The low sentences made parents think their children?s lives were meaningless, she said.

?We have depended on this judicial system to be the voice for our murdered children but all we see is broken promises and unfair justice and shattered dreams,? she said. ?The message seems to be that our children?s? lives were insignificant but to the ones that lost them you will never know how much we have to live with the loss day after day.?

Mrs. Young-Lewis said Bermuda?s judiciary needed to do some research and follow other jurisdictions with tougher laws against child abuse.

And she said the cost of expensive emotional counselling needed after seeing her son?s tongue hanging out of his unrecognisable body should not be forced on the victims.

?It is quite unfair how the families of these children are treated and we pray that this is the last of these cases that we will ever see because there is not justice for our children who can no longer smile, hug or kiss us,? she said.