Doubts over the reliability of expert evidence at trial have led to a decision by the Criminal Cases Review Commission to ask the Court of Appeal to look again at the conviction of a man, known as E, on sex charges.

E, who has not been named for legal reasons, was convicted of six counts of rape, two of indecency and two of gross indecency in 2003. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment, appealed in 2004 but the appeal was dismissed and applied to the Commission in 2006.

The Crown Prosecution Service is reported to be studying the possible implications of a decision by an Old Bailey judge that there was too much doubt over conflicting medical evidence in a case in which a mother twice stood trial accused of shaking her eight-month-old son to death.

Describing her as a "caring, dutiful wife and loving mother", Judge Timothy Pontius ordered jurors to acquit twenty-seven year old Fatima Miah of manslaughter.

Mr Justice Pontius said: "It is my firm view that, unusually, there is no evidence upon which this jury could find, to the extent they feel sure, that the expert opinion supporting the prosecution allegation of non-accidental death is to be preferred."