Eastenders, legal question

The sad truth is I enjoy watching Eastenders, well, I have to have some kind of escapisim.

For those not familiar with the recent story of Kat Moon and Ronnie Mitchell and their 2 babies, a brief summary.

Kat and Ronnie both had baby boys a few months ago. Ronnie's baby, James, died of sudden infant death sindome. Ronnie, grief stricken, somehow found herself with her dead baby James in Tommy's, Kat's baby, nursery. Ronnie swapped the babies and took Tommy and has since been pretending Tommy is James. Kat meanwhile has had all the pain and anguish of believing her baby Tommy was the one who died.

Ronnie has just admitted what she did and returned Tommy to Kat.

Putting aside the fact this is a piece of fiction, I was wondering what the legal position would be regarding the two babies. Kat has buried what she believes was Tommy, and a death certificate has been issued. James was the one who really died. So a death certificate has been issued for a baby that is still alive, and no certificate has been issued for a baby that has died. How does this get resolved?

Perry.

I'd imagine the Registrar for Births and Deaths would void one certificate and issue another. But I don't really know.

What will happen is the correct death certificate will be issued but the original one will actually still be there too in my experience. This is what happens when births are wrongly registered and you end up with two birth certificates.

Denise

 Not as easy as that,

first they will have to establish that Ronnies baby who died ,was infact Ronnies baby and not really Cat's, then they will have to establish that the baby Ronnie says is Cat's, is really Cat's, They then will have to dig up the buried baby to make sure that  it was  Ronnies baby.

This will all take about another 30 episodes in which time we will have forgotten whose baby is whose.

Kev

But that aside .......

'This will all take about another 30 episodes'

Only 30?

I cant believe this is an actual storyline. So basically the mother of a child didnt recognise that  a dead baby wasnt hers and then didnt notice that her friend had a baby who suddenly bore a remarkable resemblance to her own.

so firstly someone had this ridiculous idea, then it went past a whole load of producers. Presumably none of these people had ever had a baby and therefore just thought that all babies looked the same.

Just how bad a storyline would there have to be before viewers thought they were being taken ythe mickey out of ?

Cant believe this rubbish is paid out of my tax (what else is the license fee). Can this really be classed a publiuc service broadcasting ?

Incidentally my son had two different birth certificates in two different names. And they were obtained legally. The first did not have to be returned and both remain on publiuc record. Very useful !

Although is a pain in the bum for people in my profession when you come across several or the wrong one first :)

Denise

'I cant believe this is an actual storyline. So basically the mother of a child didnt recognise that  a dead baby wasnt hers and then didnt notice that her friend had a baby who suddenly bore a remarkable resemblance to her own.'

Probably because its fiction. A lot of what happens in fiction would not happen in real life. Part of the appeal of Eastenders for me is I know it is utter rubbish and I enjoy the escapism that gives me. Not everyone's taste I know.

How did your son end up with 2 birth certificates? How does this happen?

There is an interesting loophole which still exists. The order of events is as follows

1    Baby born to unmarried couple with father named on birth certificate. Baby has mothers surname. Birth certificate issued.

2   Subsequently mother and father marry (each other !)

3   New birth certificate can now be applied for with child surname chnaged to that of father on birth certificate. This does not involve deed poll or similar.

4   New birth certificate issued.

The only way of noticing that a chnage has taken place is on the date of issue of birth certificate. Second birth certificate has a date of issue potentially many yearas after actual date of birth. However first birth certicate is not required to be sent back etc.

I had great plans to exploit this but then my son ruined everything by becoming a policeman !

It may not have been an idea that someone at the BBC came up with (unless it's a coincidence) - this storyline seems like it was lifted straight out of the Bible, with only a couple of changes - there's a bit in the old testament where two women are brought before Solomon, one with a dead baby, one with a live one, and they can't agree on whose is whose.

Link here

So the story may well be from ancient religious writings, just updated a little by the BBC. Make of that what you will.

the bible story is crucially different.

here is brief summary

mother a has dead baby and is bitter and twisted at mother b who has live baby. Both claim to be mother of live child and are brought before solomon to decide who is true mother.

solomon says chop baby in half and mothers can have half each. Mother a says that sounds sensible yes let's do that. Mother b says if that's the option let mother a have the child.

Solomon thus identifies the true mother as mother b as she obviously cares for welfare of baby and awards full custody to her.

Thus the wisdom of solomon.

I would suggest that this bears little resemblance to the eastenders storyline as the dead baby's mother was not looking for similar pain to be inflicted on Kat. She just wanted live baby, whereas mother a wanted mother b to have the same suffering not particularly have her live baby.

I knew my Theology degree would come in useful at some point !

However it is true that eastenders has long been accused of lifting storylines from greek tragedy. There was a fascinating radio 4 documentary on this a few months ago.

Dont all babies of that age look the same?  and smell the same?

Says a childless 40 year old lol

I actually watched the Omnibus yesterday. First time in months. I actually beleive that they're scaping the barrel for story lines if they have to resort to this.. but, they've done it all over the years, after all. 

If the real baby 'James' was buried then I believe they have to exhume to establish parental line/ DNA and that there was no other foul play.