48
She was good, Declan thought. Likable, even.
But, of course, this lady had lots of experience in playing to the cameras, hadn’t she? And like any shamed media personality tasked with preserving their reputation, Madeleine Cooper had performed well and played her part to perfection as the sympathetic, reasonable parent who had made quick decisions, while at the same time openly admitting she hadn’t done everything right.
A stark contrast to the woman who’d issued a counterclaim accusing Kate of slander and defamation.
Declan couldn’t wait for Nevin to start in their side’s cross-examination, although he also hoped the barrister did not come across as overly aggressive. The media had been dancing gleefully on this woman’s grave for the past year, and he knew everyone, including the judge, had been very eager to hear her side of the story.
“Mrs. Cooper,” Patrick Nevin began smoothly. “Good afternoon.”
“Please, call me Madeleine,” she replied, evidently feeling a lot more comfortable.
“Madeleine, of course,” said the barrister with a smile. “So, Madeleine, you stated previously that as soon as you realized your daughter had contracted measles, you took your son out of Applewood Primary School right away.”
“Yes, that’s correct. I kept Jake at home as soon as I knew for sure that Clara had the disease.”
“Despite the fact that Jake had contracted the disease previously?”
“Yes, but he could still transmit the infection, I knew that. But no other children from the school came down with it, thank goodness.”
“Thank goodness indeed,” said Nevin carefully. “Now, you also said that, as a parent, you wouldn’t want to put other children at risk.”
Madeleine nodded in agreement. “Of course. It goes without saying that no parent wants to see a child get sick—no matter if it’s theirs or someone else’s.”
“Indeed. But, Mrs. Cooper, you are surely aware that you put other children at risk of this every day because of your decision to not vaccinate yours?”
“Objection!” called out Michael McGuinness. “Argumentative.”
“Overruled,” said the judge. “Answer the question please, Mrs. Cooper.”
“I don’t believe so, actually,” answered Madeleine, lifting her chin a little. “That also depends on parental decisions for the child in question.”
“Such as?”
“Such as whether that parent decides to vaccinate their own child. Either way, it is none of my business, nor is it up to me to interfere. There is no law against not vaccinating children in Ireland.”
“I am not looking to discuss other parents’ decisions regarding vaccination as a point of law, or otherwise, but rather the facts,” replied Nevin. “Based on previous testimony of medical professionals in this court, do you or do you not understand the concept of herd immunity, and how in not vaccinating your children, you compromise this and put other—particularly more vulnerable—members of the public at risk?”
“Mr. Nevin, I believe the same question could be asked of your own client. After all, her daughter is not vaccinated, either.” Declan noticed the irritation in Madeleine’s voice here as she shot a glance in Kate’s direction.
“But my client is not on the stand, Mrs. Cooper. Please, answer the question.”
Visibly stiffening, Madeleine rearranged her features carefully.
“Mrs. Cooper?” Judge Dowling said. “Your response?”
“My choices as a parent are my choices, and indeed my husband’s,” stated Madeleine crisply. “Just as Ms. O’Hara and her late husband chose not to vaccinate their daughter based on evidence that doing so could impact their child’s health, so, too, did my husband and I. Which is our right. No laws were broken.”
Nevin seemed to consider the witness as he formulated his next question.
“Yet isn’t it true, Mrs. Cooper—Madeleine—that you have somewhat of a reputation, even publicly, for being cavalier about not just your own children’s safety, but others’, too?”
“I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” she answered quickly, but Declan was pretty sure that she knew exactly what was coming. Cue Mad Mum and the litany of damaging articles that so readily painted her as a self-confessed laissez-faire parent.
“While I have much to draw on, I’m referring in particular to one appearance on the very same TV show that necessitated your absence on the morning of your daughter’s illness,” Nevin went on, “whereby you proclaimed live on the show that ‘Children don’t need to be mollycoddled, they should get scraped and cut up now and again...it helps with their development.’ Are these not your own words, Mrs. Cooper?”
“They are, but they were uttered in the context of an article I’d written about playgrounds and how parents can sometimes be too overprotective.”
“And do you still stand by those words today?” Nevin asked.
She nodded. “In the context in which they were uttered, yes, I do.”
“So you admit that you are an advocate of leaving children unprotected and left at the whims of—”
“Objection. Mrs. Cooper has already stated that her words refer to a specific context, not the issue at hand.”
The judge sighed. “Where are you going with this, Counsel?” he asked.
“Judge, I am trying to establish a pattern in Mrs. Cooper’s attitude and behavior toward risk, specifically pertaining to children. She appears to have a history of advocating dangerous parenting and an irresponsible attitude to child protection—”
“That is absolutely not true!” Madeleine cut in, becoming somewhat rattled now. “For goodness’ sake, that article related to one thing and one thing only. Children’s welfare is always a parent’s priority, every minute of the day. We lose sleep over it, we worry and we fret because we are constantly trying to live up to what’s best. Endless so-called ‘rules’ laid down by doctors, health experts, well-meaning strangers or other parents who love to tell us what we’re doing wrong or how our kids should be behaving at that age. And then, just in case that’s not enough, continuous judgment on top of it all! So how can you honestly stand there and tell me that a little bit of leeway once in a while is a bad thing for either a child or a parent?”
Declan saw how Madeleine now commanded every pair of eyes in the room. It was a stirring speech and she did make some good points, but he got the sense that she was only managing to dig herself in deeper where Nevin was concerned.
“Quite the diatribe, Mrs. Cooper, thank you. However, I believe my point still stands that your decisions as a parent aren’t always in the interests of protecting other children, and this is personified by your approach to the vaccination issue, is it not?”
Madeleine was stony-faced. “I believe I’ve already explained myself at length in that regard.”
“Let’s move on. So, in relation to the same vaccination issue, you said earlier that you felt other parents’ decisions in this regard were equally important. Yet isn’t it also true that you immediately took some level of responsibility for Rosie O’Hara’s measles infection—specifically while she was in the hospital?”
Madeleine wore a neutral expression. “Obviously I felt terrible for what Kate and Rosie were going through. I was very worried and hugely sympathetic—I still am.”
The barrister nodded at her response. “Of course, but I asked you if you felt responsible.”
Quickly, Madeleine replied, “It wasn’t that I felt directly responsible... I just felt bad that Clara had gotten over her own illness so well and Rosie didn’t. But it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just...happened.”
At this, Nevin seemed to smirk ever so slightly as he motioned to Alison. He looked to the judge. “I would like to submit the following evidence for the court’s consideration, namely a blog post that Mrs. Cooper published for public consumption shortly after Ms. O’Hara issued legal proceedings.” Declan studied Madeleine’s face when a written transcript of the blog was produced. He couldn’t be sure but he thought he spotted a flash of panic in her eyes. “Mrs. Cooper, would you like to read these words as written by you?”
She looked to Townsend then, as if for guidance, and he seemed to shake his head no. Declan was flabbergasted. Surely he’d prepared his client for this possibility and must have known that their side would have the errant blog post in their arsenal, ready to use at just the right moment? Why else had they been so quick to take it down?
But maybe they’d been foolish enough to believe they’d done so in the nick of time, before anyone had seen it. Luckily for him, Alison had added herself to the ranks of Mad Mum’s devoted followers the day after Kate agreed to proceed with the case.
And his little sister missed nothing.
“Very well. Do you, then, or indeed the court, have any objection to it being read out loud by a third party?”
“Judge, how is this relevant? Mrs. Cooper’s missive to her social media followers is hardly of interest to the court.”
“Oh, it is indeed of interest, Mr. McGuinness, and also very pertinent to the witness’s current line of testimony, as we shall soon discover. Mrs. Cooper?”
Madeleine nodded almost imperceptibly and the judge waved a hand.
“Proceed, Counsel.”
At this, Alison stood up and cleared her throat. If, as it turned out, Madeleine did not want to read out her blog post, Declan felt it better and more impactful to have her words be read by another female, so as to closely associate them in the judge’s mind with the defendant.
Or to be more specific, her plea.
“‘I know there are a lot of opinions out there on what is happening at the moment with my daughter, my family and the O’Hara family. Yes, I openly admit that my husband and I did not vaccinate our children against MMR—we have never hidden that. We have our reasons—they are multifaceted and very personal—and I don’t wish to discuss them on a public forum. But, in short, and following extensive research and much soul-searching, we are not completely convinced of the MMR vaccine’s safety. The risk involved in participating with the vaccine program is one my husband and I could not, in good faith, take with our own children. The worry of bringing them to harm by doing so, taken against the risks borne from contracting a disease, were just too great. Additionally, my eldest son, Jake, had measles when he was eighteen months old, and, like my daughter, Clara, recovered well with no ill effects. For us, that risk of not vaccinating paid off, in that our children both contracted the disease yet remain healthy and unharmed.
“‘Kate O’Hara chose to take the same risk in not vaccinating, but for health rather than personal reasons. And while my daughter recovered well, her little girl, Rosie, is now fighting for her life in the hospital.
“‘I feel so sorry for Kate and would honestly do anything for her so that she could realize the same thing as I did: a happy, healthy child who has made a complete recovery.
“‘But since I can’t do that, all I can say is that I am sorry—from the bottom of my heart, I am sorry that this has happened, and for my part in it. If I could somehow go back in time to change things, I would. But I can’t.
“‘I cannot imagine how scared Kate must be at the moment, or how helpless she feels. And to the people who don’t know me, who are criticizing me and calling me a terrible parent, I want to say that I never claimed to be Mother of the Year, nor do I want to.
“‘Most of us parents are just trying to do the best we can, one day at a time. I will try to do better in the future, but, for what it’s worth, I’m truly, deeply sorry for any harm my actions might have caused.’”
At those words, a loud hush enveloped the courtroom and, having said her piece, Alison sat down.
“Quite the apology, for someone who says they don’t believe they are at fault,” Nevin commented, a quizzical expression on his face.
Declan felt elated. It was fairly categorical; in her own words, Madeleine Cooper outright admitted she was to blame for what had happened.
“When you wrote this piece, what were you sorry for, Mrs. Cooper?” pressed Nevin. “What did you mean when apologizing ‘for my part in it’?”
“That post was written in the heat of the moment,” she replied shortly, and Declan was pleased to note that finally she seemed to be losing her cool.
There it is: the chink in her armor. Her profile.
Nevin didn’t say anything; he was waiting for a continued explanation. “Mrs. Cooper?”
“Look,” she went on, a noticeable quiver now in her voice, “at the time I wrote that piece, I was receiving a lot of flack. People were sending me hate emails and posting insulting things online, telling me what a bad mother I was. Complete strangers were lambasting my parenting skills and calling me names. One journalist in particular was buzzing around, asking questions and stirring things up—all because of some personal beef she had against me. There was so much anger and pushback about the vaccination thing from people I don’t even know. And it just kept on coming and getting worse. I did feel sorry for Rosie and bad for Kate—I still do—and, of course, I felt guilty that my daughter was the one who’d emerged unscathed. I hadn’t been able to contact Kate or get through to her, and I wanted to get the word out that, yes, maybe I made some bad choices, but I wasn’t the villain people were making me out to be.”
“You mean you wanted to try and save face?”
“Objection!” shouted Michael McGuinness. “Judge, he’s badgering the witness.”
“Sustained. Mr. Nevin, please watch your tone.”
“Understood,” the barrister replied and Declan realized that it really didn’t matter if that last comment had been disallowed. They’d needed to paint Madeleine as self-serving—someone who perhaps even spoke out of both sides of her mouth—and it had worked.
“My apologies, Mrs. Cooper. Let me rephrase that question: Did you write the blog post because you felt personally responsible for Rosie O’Hara’s condition or for some other reason?”
Now they had just presented Madeleine Cooper with a complete Catch-22. If she answered yes, then it was an admission of guilt. If she said that it was for another reason, she came across as insincere—someone who would say anything in order to make herself look good.
Her truthful answer here would either win this case or at least show her true character to the judge, which might help them win it anyway. He thought for sure that McGuinness would offer a further objection—even though doing so might look like he, too, was trying to prevent an admission of guilt, which wouldn’t play well with the judge. But when the defense barrister’s silence continued, Declan knew that Madeleine was going to have to show her hand and answer the question truthfully.
“Mrs. Cooper?” Nevin pressed. “Did you hear my question? Did you write that post because you felt personally responsible for Rosie O’Hara’s condition?”
Madeleine took a deep breath. “No, I did not,” she said with resignation.
Nevin nodded and crossed his arms. “Then why did you write it?” he asked simply.
“Because I was upset by people harassing me online. And, on top of that, I’d just been offered a publishing deal for my blog, and I suppose didn’t want to mess that up,” she added defeatedly. Now she appeared resigned, as if there was no choice other than to come clean.
Pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes, the barrister continued, “Yes, I’m sure that is quite upsetting and hard to deal with.” Then, as quickly as he could, he added, “Being harassed online and potentially losing a publishing deal must be very upsetting indeed, compared to the stress, worry and fear associated with having a child seriously ill in the hospital.”
Madeleine’s face looked drawn and it was clear she was finding this line of questioning a lot more harrowing now. While this morning, she came across as reasonable and rational, now she was being painted as selfish and insincere.
Nevin was moving on. “So while you don’t accept responsibility for what has happened to Rosie directly, you do admit that by choosing not to vaccinate your daughter against serious disease, you increased the risk of her not only contracting such a disease, but passing infection on to others, do you not?”
She nodded uncertainly, but didn’t reply, clearly unsure as to what she should say.
“In which case,” Nevin continued, “it would be reasonable to assume you would be more inclined to evaluate such a risk when either of your children showed any signs of illness, would it not?”
“It’s not that simple. I had no idea measles could get that serious.”
“But it did, didn’t it? Certainly in Rosie O’Hara’s case. Honestly, Mrs. Cooper, can you not appreciate how your and your husband’s actions, or should I say inaction in this situation—in not vaccinating your children—potentially made it far more dangerous for the general population should they fall ill? And in your blog post, by wishing you could go back and change things, you openly admit neglecting to take that fact into account when you sent your already sick daughter to school. You said it yourself this morning, Madeleine; you made a call. Turns out it was the wrong one.”
Madeleine sat forward, her expression pained as she realized the trap Nevin was laying for her. “But...I never meant for any of this to happen, of course I didn’t!”
“Don’t get me wrong, Mrs. Cooper, I do sympathize. We see such situations in this court all the time: the driver who didn’t mean to cause a fatal accident by sending a text while behind the wheel, the hospital staff member who made the wrong call during a routine procedure. The point is, these actions all have consequences, some of them devastating and, in Rosie O’Hara’s case, life changing. Just because you didn’t mean to do something doesn’t make those consequences go away. And in choosing not to vaccinate your child, Mrs. Cooper, and going against proven HSE-approved immunity recommendations, your inaction created a default duty to protect other children in your daughter’s immediate environment—an onus to be mindful of other, more vulnerable children such as Rosie. A duty of care you chose to ignore.”
There was complete silence in the court as Patrick Nevin’s words were driven home not just to the entire court, but Madeleine Cooper, too.
“I was just trying to keep them safe!” she argued, tears in her eyes. “I couldn’t do it...not after what I’d seen with Cameron, not when I’d seen a perfect little boy change before my eyes. All the medical assurances in the world can’t make you discount what you’ve seen with your own two eyes. I just couldn’t run that risk with my children and, yes, you’re right, I didn’t consider the effect this might have on others, or on the greater good. But for crying out loud, who the hell does?”
At this, an awed gasp cut across the courtroom from the media gallery.
Oh, wow, Declan thought. Here we go. After being made to stay silent for so long, now they were really seeing Mad Mum in all her glory.
She wiped at her eyes furiously, as if offended that tears should dare make an appearance in the court, but then she stared defiantly back at Nevin, evidently deciding to own what she had just said.
“If somebody told you to throw your child under a bus for the sake of the greater good, would you do it? Of course not! But that’s how the MMR vaccination felt to me. Why should making the best decision for my child somehow make me responsible for someone else’s? Any mother—if she truly felt her child was in danger—would do the very same thing. And, Kate, when it came down to it,” she pleaded, looking over at the plaintiff’s table, her blue eyes now boring directly into the other woman’s as she addressed her directly, “didn’t you make the very same call?”