IT took no more than 10 seconds of uncontained anger or dreadful panic for Louise
Sullivan to inflict deadly injury on baby Caroline Jongen; 10 seconds to destroy the young
Australian nanny's unambitious life plan and inflict unimaginable torment on the
six-month-old girl's parents, Marcel and Muriel.
For almost nine months, the Australian nanny had lived in denial. But on Monday, with
her trial for the murder of baby Caroline about to begin, Sullivan faced the tragic truth.
She had killed the child, the little girl she had told police was "the sweetest
little girl I ever looked after".
On Monday, Sullivan stood in the dock of Court 16 at London's Central Criminal Court
and read from a handwritten note on a piece of paper torn from a legal notepad. Wearing a
black skirt, white shirt and black jacket, her long blonde hair clasped rigidly away from
her face as her childcare training would have required, the 27-year-old told the court she
was "guilty of manslaughter on the basis of involuntary manslaughter".
Having said her brief, traumatic piece, Sullivan sat, a figure of mute regret and
intense, sad solitude, in an oversized dock built to hold a criminal cricket team. She sat
to hear the Crown present a precis of what was to be the case against her.
Nigel Sweeney QC spoke for the prosecution. In almost numbingly moderate tones he
explained in extensive, straightforward detail just how baby Caroline had died from her
injuries.
Sweeney asked Justice Mitchell to picture Caroline's brain as a jelly in a mould. He
described the life-threatening damage caused when, even for only seconds, a baby's brain
is rattled around in the "jelly mould, in its skull". As Sweeney spoke, Sullivan
sobbed quietly, wiping away tears with a pink tissue crushed tightly in her left hand.
Caroline's parents sat only 2m to the left of Sullivan. As she listened to Sweeney
describe the chain reaction of death started by the shaking inflicted by Sullivan,
French-born Muriel Jongen, a financial analyst, cried quietly, turning slightly to avoid
the gaze of the gallery. Caroline's father, Dutch-born funds manager Marcel, gently held
his wife's hand but stared implacably ahead as if afraid to look at either his wife or
Sullivan lest that glance open a wellspring of emotional torment.
The Jongens hired Sullivan on December 30, 1997, and she moved into their home to look
after Caroline in early January. They had earlier dismissed a nanny who Muriel found
unacceptable. Sullivan, who was introduced to the family by an agency, Kidz Unlimited, was
interviewed twice by the Jongens, first by Muriel and then by the couple together. The
Australian was given a month's trial and, despite some misgivings by Muriel, she was kept
on.
Sullivan worked from 7am to 7pm, five days a week and was required to babysit two
nights a week. It was a demanding schedule but not unusual for a full-time nanny and she
was being relatively well rewarded. Sullivan was paid £140 ($364) net a week and lived in
a self-contained flat in the house.
Sullivan arrived in Britain clutching a handful of glowing references on April 17,
1997, exactly a year before that fateful day in north London. She said she came to Britain
to get experience, to further her career in childcare.
But police who investigated the crime now believe she was fleeing unhappy experiences
in Australia where she had proved herself incapable of securing long-term work and had
been dismissed twice: once for shaking a baby and once for bouncing a baby
inappropriately.
As police pieced together a complete picture of Sullivan and her life, the full extent
of the Jongens' tragedy became apparent. While her good references were real, she had
understandably made no mention of her setbacks and there is no formal record of her
employment history as a nanny.
And while the grades she earned in childcare studies at Crows Nest Technical and
Further Education College in North Sydney were undoubtedly good, Sullivan had otherwise
always struggled at school.
Her defence team reportedly planned to present evidence that Sullivan was born without
a thyroid gland, a problem that was not treated early enough and which had left her with a
speech impediment, poor co-ordination, an abnormal gait and low intelligence. There are
reports she has an IQ of about 80 and one of the mothers who dismissed Sullivan told
police that she "seemed naive and immature and I did not trust her to make critical
judgments".
Friday April 17, 1998, had dawned like many in the 3½ months Sullivan had lived and
worked at the Jongens' five-bedroom home at Asmara Road in north-west London.
The evening before Sullivan had enjoyed dinner with the Jongens to celebrate the
anniversary of her arrival in London. It was a happy night.
Friday began peacefully with Sullivan gently lifting the waking Caroline out of her cot
at 8.30am to retire together for a further 15 minutes shared, gentle repose.
But by mid-morning a tragedy was unfolding. Caroline was displaying a baby's
contrariness. She would not finish her bottle. And Caroline's doctors had recently become
concerned that she wasn't gaining enough weight. Sullivan was concerned she should do more
to encourage Caroline to eat. That was her job, to care for the child.
Sullivan is yet to explain just why she shook Caroline. Perhaps she never will. But it
is now certain that she grabbed the little girl around the chest, thumbs under her chin,
fingers behind her chest, and shook her.
The prosecution says Sullivan shook Caroline "with severe force" for more
than five seconds and no more than 10. Almost immediately the baby collapsed into
unconsciousness and then vomited, covering her tiny head and neck with the milk her nanny
had been so desperate she should finish.
As baby Caroline's life began slipping away, Sullivan went into a delusory panic which
ultimately condemned Caroline ever more certainly to death. Sullivan rang a neighbour,
saying the baby had suddenly gone limp. By 11.15am the neighbour had dialled 999 after
concluding, from what Sullivan had told her, that the baby had suffered a fit.
Caroline was rushed to hospital where doctors treated the baby based on
the symptoms described by the increasingly inconsolable Sullivan. The baby was stabilised,
given antibiotics and placed on oxygen.
But the medical staff were increasingly concerned that the baby showed no
signs of recovering consciousness. She was obviously in a coma and her condition worsened
rapidly. Caroline stopped breathing and was placed on a respirator. She never again
breathed on her own.
By 6.45pm, after she had been transferred to Great Ormond Street
Children's Hospital, a brain scan showed that 75 per cent of baby Caroline's brain was
already dead.
"Effectively, Caroline's life was hanging by a thread and at that
stage her death was utterly inevitable. It was all too obvious what had happened and her
parents were told the awful reality that Caroline was very likely to die," Sweeney
told the court.
That evening, a doctor at the Great Ormond told the Jongens their daughter
would die. But it would take a further three days of tests and analysis before the medical
staff could abandon the little girl to her fate.
The Jongens returned home to talk to Sullivan. After telling her their
daughter would die, they asked her what had happened. But Sullivan was incoherent with
grief. The conversation was abandoned. But the medical evidence was clear. The Jongens'
daughter had suffered shaken baby syndrome. The police were called in and she was arrested
the following day and charged with grievous bodily harm. In September, after a five-month
investigation, she was charged with murder.
Four days after being told their daughter would die, the necessary tests
confirming brain death had been completed and, at about 6.30pm on Tuesday April 21,
Caroline's life-support was turned off. Her limp body was lifted into her mother's arm.
Where she had been nurtured is where she died.
Matthew Stevens is The Australian's Europe correspondent.
