Lindsay Clancy murder trial collapses

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0:30and more options to their line-up, can shop at machinefinder.com. Booyah! Hello, I'm Sean Lay. Thanks for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast from Friday the 4th of September. Schools were closed in Middlesbrough and the police present, they said, to ensure public safety, as the first funeral was held of one of the five young men who died in a head-on collision. We hear from the Chief Constable of Cleveland on how her force is dealing with the highest crime rate in England. Nigel Farage hits back after an undercover investigation raised fresh questions about Reform UK and its funding Lindsay Clancy, who killed her three children but said she was suffering from postpartum psychosis is facing a new trial after the judge accepted the jury was deadlocked The defence is pushing for the case to be abandoned We have a tribute to Richard O'Sullivan, a big TV star of the 70s and 80s who vanished from public view for 30 years He's just died And cutting the Americans and the Russians down to size why African nations in particular want the UN to stop relying on a 16th century Flemish mapmaker's scale for showing the world.

1:33You're listening to The World Tonight with Sean Lay. The Lindsay Clancy strangled her three young children aged five, three and eight months. At their home in Boston, Massachusetts is not in doubt. Afterwards, she cut herself and then jumped from a second story window, an attempt to end her life, which instead left her paralysed. A news report from Boston 25, a local channel, described her arrest on the 26th of January, 2023. Well, developing this morning an arrest warrant is issued for Duxbury mother accused of killing her two children and sending her eight month old baby boy to the hospital.

2:1032 year old Lindsay Clancy is being treated for injuries that she suffered in an attempted suicide. Boston 25 news reporter Kelly Sullivan is live from his home in Duxbury where that community is shaken by what happened there, Kel. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is just horrifying. Three years on what does remain in doubt, and on which a jury had been deliberating for six days, is whether Lindsay was criminally responsible at the time, or whether postpartum psychosis was the reason she killed. That issue has defined much of the US media commentary as pundits debate what it means to be a mother, what responsibilities lie with doctors and the medical insurance companies who pay for them, and whether she should have been charged with first-degree murder at all.

2:49The jury had been deadlocked and the defence had argued that one of the 12 was willfully disregarding Judge William Sullivan's direction on the definition of reasonable doubt, but her lawyer was unable to persuade an appeal court that the juror should be replaced. So Judge Sullivan declared a mistrial, discharging the jury and quoting Churchill as he did so. During World War II, Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister for England when England pretty much stood against Nazi Germany alone. And so Churchill oftentimes had to talk to the citizens and say, let us brace for our duties. I always liked that phrase.

3:31And I thought of that phrase when all of you were agreeing to be on this jury. He agreed to brace for that duty. And each one of you knew how long the case was going to go. You knew how difficult the case was going to be to listen to facts-wise, but still you braced for that duty. Judge William Sullivan was speaking outside the court. The Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said they hadn't yet decided on whether or not to pursue a retrial, but he insisted his team had always been motivated by getting justice for the dead children. Our priority has always been to fight for Cora, for Dawson and for Callan.

4:15the noise in this case may be louder than it is for other prosecutions in our county, but we have treated it the same as any other case. Children were murdered, and it's our job to seek justice. It's been a distressing case for observers, but most of all for the participants, including the children's father, Mrs Clancy's now former husband, Patrick. This was the moment in court when he described finding their bodies. I looked in the bathroom and on the other side of the couch and then I went to the other side of the basement and he was in my office. And when you saw Dawson, what condition was he in?

4:57I knew he was gone. At another point in the trial, when listening to the findings from the autopsies, Lindsay Clancy broke down. What about injuries? All right, council, could...

5:13Let me take a break this time, all right? Well, the BBC's Arnie Wells is live in Boston for us tonight. Arnie, there's been such attention on this case in the United States and increasingly around the world. Was it clear that this was moving towards a mistrial?

5:34I think in the last two days it became increasingly apparent that that was certainly looking more and more likely and that really came after this moment where a note was passed from the jury saying that there was concern that one of the jurors was struggling to follow instructions when it came to this principle of reasonable doubt. That was certainly seized upon by Lindsay Clancy's defence lawyer who said that that meant the jury in question should be dismissed There was a lot of back and forth between the defence lawyer and the judge in this case. But ultimately, despite various appeals by the defence, the judge decided to reject those appeals and said that he did believe the jurors were able to deliberate and did understand the levels of doubt that were permissible in a case like this.

6:20I think even though it was certainly heading that way and people increasingly were speculating that's where it was going, it didn't make the moment any less shocking for people in the room. there was a moment where the whole courtroom really fell silent when it was announced. And I think that's partly because if you imagine the people who are in there, it's not just some members of the public who have turned up to watch this case, but it is also people like Lindsay Clancy's parents, others who have testified throughout this trial. Now, after weeks and weeks of witnessing and giving this brutal testimony, you're finding out that there is ultimately no answer.

6:52Arnie Wells, thank you. Listening to that, Jill Wine-Banks, who served as an assistant special prosecutor during the Watergate investigation, was U.S. General Counsel of the Army in the Carter administration and now presents the American Legal Podcast, Just the Facts. Jill, thanks so much for being with us. It's good to talk to you again. What do you make of the developments in particular today? One of the most unusual, this note from the foreperson of the jury passed to the judge suggesting that one of the other jurors was ignoring legal instructions. Is that quite unusual? It is unusual. A mistrial is not that unusual.

7:29and does happen, but it's very unusual for the foreperson to three times go back to the judge and say, we have one juror who will not, even though he admits there's reasonable doubt, will not apply it to reach a verdict in this case. So that was a little unusual. And of course, a mistrial is always a very sad outcome. It's anticlimactic. You're waiting for either an acquittal or a conviction. And there was a huge crowd outside the courtroom supporting Lindsay. There's been a lot of attention to the mental health repercussions of not dealing with postpartum depression or psychosis. And hopefully there will be medical changes made that people will get the treatment they need that it will be recognized.

8:20What impact do you think this case has made in the United States? I don't think it's had any particular effect except in possibly recognizing the seriousness of postpartum depression and psychosis. Someone else commented to me that it also shows the difference in how a mother who kills her children are viewed versus how fathers who do it. That the sympathy for the mother, and of course there is a physical difference. The father does not suffer from postpartum medical conditions, whereas the mother does. And this is highlighting how terrible it is. I think the clip you played where Lindsay broke down in the courtroom hearing about finding the children and talking about it, it's hard because it is so emotionally compelling that it's hard to imagine any mother doing that.

9:20And so we sort of almost assume that she must be mentally ill if she did this horrible thing. How could a mother do that to her own children? One of the other phenomena, I suppose, that is changing, of course, is the impact of social media. Katie Caduto, who's an assistant professor of media science at Boston, posited this theory, what's called forensic fandom, that people engage with these trials so intensely now, but also do on a level as if they were a kind of a live TV event, even a kind of a drama series rather than real life. I think that's true. We saw the same thing happen in the killing of an insurance executive where the killer became almost a hero.

10:06Lindsay is not a hero. If anything, Lindsay Clancy is considered to be a sad victim of the medical condition she suffered. But others have become heroes to the public and have huge support in the courtroom and writing letters to the person. And you're right. I hadn't thought of it that way. But we're so used to seeing reality, quote, TV shows, which are really scripted and fake anyway, that this becomes like, oh, it can't be real that a mother could possibly do this. And it probably will be made into a Netflix series. Although, again, it's so gruesome, I can't imagine that they will actually focus on the actual facts of this case.

10:55Jill Weinbanks, host of Just the Facts, the American Legal Podcast. Thanks very much for being with us again on The World Tonight. Coming up a little bit later. We will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before. It's a very small population, but very, very large piece of land and very, very important for military security. Donald Trump in a previous State of the Union address. A UN vote which could mean that on maps Greenland would no longer appear as big as US President Donald Trump thinks it is. Stay with us on The World's Night to find out why.

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12:27For the last 24 hours, since we brought you the news on this programme last night, Nigel Farage and his Party of Reform UK have been fending off questions over funding after Channel 4 News broadcast undercover filming by the Centre for Climate Reporting, a not-for-profit organisation which investigates those it believes obstruct climate action and use their money to influence people in power. Mr Farage used a speech at the party's conference in Birmingham to dismiss what they had done as entrapment and said the broadcast demonstrated he and his colleagues had not broken the law. A foreign-funded group of hard-left activists with a long history.

13:05Indeed, a group in the past strongly criticised by the US Congress for their methods have for over a year, and at huge financial cost targeted figures in reform. Make no mistake, this was an exercise, a prolonged exercise, in entrapment. I want to be clear, the party has done nothing wrong. The party has taken no illegal money. The party has taken no money. That's important. In the end, that can only be determined by the Electoral Commission, which regulates political parties. In the meantime, Mr Varage offered this explanation for what the footage broadcast on Channel 4 did show. What is problematic is loose pub talk, including a couple of boasts that were made that simply were not true.

13:59But some of the comments made by two of our team were injudicious at best. Neither of these men was authorised to act in this way. Accordingly, they've stepped down, pending an investigation. I repeat, reform has broken no law. We take compliance extremely seriously. Nigel Farage had finally begun speaking a little before 6 o 'clock this evening. Later than scheduled, he said, because of a security alert. It was also shorter than expected and was repeatedly interrupted by hecklers in the conference hall. His Chancellor, his Chancellor John Healy says, this is a continuity government. Oh, we've got a screamer!

14:42We've got a screamer! We've got a screamer! Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ah, lovely. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, dear, oh, dear. The core of the speech was, as one would expect from an opposition leader, a list of what his party would do if it comes to power. Cut welfare spending, leave the European Convention on Human Rights and stop boats containing would-be migrants from crossing the Channel, in part through a deal with the French party National Rally, which hopes to win next year's presidential election. Some will say, and there'll be many sceptics in the room, how can you achieve this, given the obstacles that are in front of you?

15:29Well, we will declare a national emergency. all recess of Parliament will be cancelled. Parliament will sit, if necessarily, for 24 hours a day.

15:52For six days a week until we pass the necessary legislation. And our policies will be explicit in our offering document to the British people. Well, listening to that was our political correspondent, Harry Farley, who's still in Birmingham as the conference continues. Harry, it's been a conference where things haven't gone to plan for reform, not least, of course, with Mr Farage's speech, but also with publicity they could have done without. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a day, as you say, that has certainly not been the one that reform officials were hoping for. The reform officials I was speaking to in the lead-up to this conference, starting with the most recently, I suppose, that speech, the delay which reform officials put down to questions and concerns about security to Nigel Farage getting up on the speech, and then the repeated interruptions because of protesters.

16:46I think I counted four times that Nigel Farage was forced to pause his speech while a protester was ejected. It was a speech that was shorter than might have been expected. It was largely off the cuff, apart from that extract that we heard there where he read out a statement or appeared to read out a statement about those questions about the undercover filming. And he really distanced himself from it and distanced himself from those two aides who have stepped down, who, it's worth saying, were very senior aides and advisers to him, including Dan Dukes, one of his longest standing advisers. So two men who were critical to reform's rapid rise in recent months and years.

17:30And I suppose that filming, that undercover filming by that group, has dominated conversations here today and dominated conversations about the extent to which it damages the party beyond these immediate days at the conference. We did have a kind of a celebrity, as far as many on the right would see him, at the conference. Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally Party in France. Yeah, absolutely. And that was really supposed to be billed as one of the main events, really, of the conference, the main announcement of this conference, that Nigel Farage and Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally in France, signed an agreement, a political deal, I suppose.

18:13They both signed this document with great fanfare on stage. And it sets out that if both parties were to win power in their respective countries, then the UK would intercept boats crossing the channel in crossing the English Channel. They would return them to France and ordinarily France would accept those those migrants and then repatriate them to their home countries. Now, obviously, this agreement at the moment at least doesn't have any legitimacy or power, really. However, if these parties were to win, then it could take on some kind of legally binding document. And this was supposed to be, I suppose, reform trying to show that it is a serious government in waiting, a party that can have relationships and deal with other parties overseas, particularly on the right.

19:03And yet question after question at that press conference with Nigel Farge and Jordan Bardella focused on these on this issue of this undercover filming and the questions it raises. And I think that was an illustration, if you like, of how this conference and reforms opportunities to try and move on from a difficult summer has really been overshadowed by this story. Harry Farley, our political correspondent in Birmingham. Thank you. A vote at the UN General Assembly earlier on Friday could eventually change the way we view the world. 164 countries, including the UK, backed a resolution which calls for them to move away from the traditional map, which critics say distorts the globe.

19:42The United States was the only country to vote against. And if you need to know why it matters, consider this quote from Donald Trump five years ago. I love maps. Look at the size of this. It's massive. And that should be part of the United States. The President was referring to Greenland and he repeated his ambition in his State of the Union address in March of last year. We will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before. It's a very small population, but very, very large piece of land and very, very important for military security. On traditional maps made using the scale devised by Gerardus Mercator in 1569, the island of Greenland looks almost as big as the continent of Africa.

20:26In realtor, Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland. It's because the Mokotan map makes the northern hemisphere appear larger than it really is, and consequently countries along the equator, many of them in Africa, smaller. James Cheshire is Professor of Geographic Information and Cartography at UCL. He's also the author of the Library of Lost Maps. He came into the studio to explain by the way of mapping the world that works in 1569 doesn't work in 2026. It's really hard to take a sphere, or technically an oblate spheroid, which is the shape of our Earth, and put it on a flat sheet of paper.

21:03So there's no perfect way of doing it. And there's lots of different approaches you can take, and you can preserve area, or you can preserve shape, or you can preserve distance and direction, but not everything at once perfectly, because otherwise you'd be back to a sphere. So in Makata's case, what he was doing was he was creating a projection that would work really well for navigating across oceans, which was principally what people were interested in using maps for. And so in his view, he wanted a straight line to be drawn on a map to look like a straight line in reality if you followed a compass bearing.

21:40So that was what it was intended to do, and that's what it does brilliantly well. And so he was preserving the sense of distance, the idea that you could set your ship off in a particular direction and follow a straight line. That's what he was interested in. I think what's happened more recently is this kind of contemporary use of the Mercator map, which is why it's suddenly come to the fore again as a more sort of political issue rather than a sort of technical one. So the Donald Trump Greenland example is the one that leaps to mind? Yes. I mean, that's, again, a kind of interesting thing where there's a theory that because Greenland appears so large on the map relative to North America and other places, that that is what captured Trump's attention as a piece of land that was worth getting.

22:33In terms of the proposal that Togo and the other African countries are putting forward, and now the French foreign ministry says it's going to co-sponsor, if it were implemented and if countries then adopted it, What would it mean for our maps and our perception of the world? It's a really interesting question, and I'm not sure I know what the answer is, because one of the things about this is that it's, you know, Mercator is a good projection in certain contexts. It's not a good projection in others. So mixing up your map projection is something that's quite important to do. I think what it will mean, hopefully, is it will encourage people to diversify their choices beyond the Mercator map.

23:19And the reason why the Mercator map has become so well known in the last couple of decades, really, is because it was the projection of choice from tech companies who are making web maps for the first time. And so there were technical reasons why they chose the Mercator projection, I think, rather than sort of geopolitical ones. the technology has come on a long way and so actually those technical problems can be largely solved and what we're really talking about here i think are maps at the continental scale or or larger the nuances are not so clear at the national scale or even at the city scale or even if you're just looking at your street you know and you want to know how to get to the nearest restaurant or something like that the big debate political debate has been that in a sense the people's perception of the world based on looking at a map distorts the decision making, distorts their sense of how important they are, how important their neighbours are.

24:19Is there evidence for that? Typically, we might equate size with importance and that's undoubtedly the case, particularly on maps as well. If you have a larger area and you've coloured it a certain way, then of course your eye is drawn to that larger area. That's probably why all those maps of the British Empire were coloured pink. Well, indeed, or at least why the pink was obvious, particularly in places like Canada where the distortion was largest. So, you know, when I teach my students cartography, I say to them, what is it you're trying to show? Because actually, if you're trying to show things that relate to the population of the planet, Mercator is not the way to go because actually it expands the areas where no one lives largely.

25:02You know, a few people are there, but nothing like the population of equatorial regions. so in that case maybe choose a different projection that highlights those regions so you know the skills have always been there the technology has enabled us to do it I think really what needs to happen is you know we start to move to a situation where people start to think more deeply about the maps they're looking at and asking you know why is this area bigger than that area and what impact is it having on me and I think that's you know that's the real positive that comes out of this I think. So in truth you can map the world in very many different ways and they can all be accurate.

25:40Yes or another way of putting at it is they can all be equally inaccurate in different ways and so that's always the balance that you have to strike. Professor James Cheshire author of the Library of Lost Maps. The headlines so far on The World Tonight at 29 minutes to 11 if you're listening to us live. The judge in the case of Lindsay Clancy, an American woman charged with murdering her three children has declared a mistrial because the jury was deadlocked. Nigel Farage insists Reform UK has done nothing illegal after an undercover investigation appeared to show officials trying to evade electoral law.

26:16President Trump says his envoys have a proposal to end the war in Ukraine, which they will present to the Ukrainian and Russian governments in Kiev and in Moscow this weekend. In Middlesbrough this afternoon, a funeral service was held for Yakub Matusiak, one of five young men who died when the car they were travelling in, going in the wrong direction on a dual carriageway, collided with a police car, killing the two officers inside. Four schools in the area had shut their doors at lunchtime because of concerns, they said, about traffic disruption. The police said they would be present to ensure public safety, but there were no visible police presence outside the church on Normandy Road where hundreds of people had gathered.

26:56The last two weeks have been difficult ones in this part of Teesside as politicians and the media debated the level of criminality and whether Cleveland police had ceded control over the streets. The BBC's special correspondent, Ed Thomas, has been talking to local youngsters about their relationship with the police. RIP, that's all you've got to say. As a 17-year-old lad, when you woke up to that, what impact did that have on you? He was my best mate, obviously. Sad, isn't it? The police are connecting some of this to organised crime. The police are full of s***. I blame the police. When you see the police, do you see somebody who could help you in a bad situation?