Only five women convicted of murdering their children are to have their cases reopened after a review of more than 100 convictions of parents and carers in which paediatrician Professor Roy Meadow gave evidence, said the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.

The government announced the review after Angela Cannings, convicted of the murder of two of her children, was freed on appeal in January this year. Her appeal followed the collapse of the prosecution case against Trupti Patel, accused of murdering her three babies. In that case, the dictum known as “Meadow's law” was heavily criticised. The theory holds that one infant death in a family is a tragedy, two are grounds for …