A two-year-old girl suffered 21 broken bones while being subjected to a ‘campaign of violence’ at the hands of her mum and her mother’s new boyfriend that ended with her murder, a court heard.
Isabelle Rose Welsh was found lying lifeless at the foot of the stairs at the home she shared with mum Alexandra Walker, 25, in Thornaby, Teesside, last September.
The toddler’s body was ‘covered in bruises’ – especially her head, neck, abdomen, back, as well as her genitals and bottom, jurors at Teesside Crown Court were told.
Walker and her boyfriend, Harrison Simpson, 21, are on trial charged with Isabelle’s murder, causing or allowing the death of a child, assault by penetration of a child under 13 and child cruelty.
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, said: ‘Isabelle’s death was not the result of some form of naturally occurring illness.
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‘She died because shortly before her terminal collapse somebody had inflicted a massive head injury upon her.
‘Her skull had been fractured, her brain had been injured, and her heart had stopped as a result of that assault upon her.’
The couple had got together barely three months earlier and Simpson soon became a regular visitor to Walker’s home, spending ‘a lot of time’ with the little girl, the court heard.
Mr Wright said the couple had an ‘unhealthy’ relationship in which drink and drugs were a feature, and it led to the decline in Isabelle’s care before it built to her being ‘subjected to regular violence at home by these defendants’.
Jurors heard Isabelle suffered a broken leg towards the end of August but it was days before her mum finally sought any medical treatment.
Walker took Isabelle to the family GP who referred them on to the accident and emergency department at North Tees Hospital on September 2 – 11 days before she died, the court heard.
She took Isabelle to the family GP who referred them on to the accident and emergency department at North Tees Hospital on September 2 – 11 days before she died, the court heard.
The mother claimed her toddler hurt herself poking her leg through her cot.
An X-ray showed she had suffered a spiral fracture to her tibia.
Medics followed a child protection policy, Mr Wright said.
He added: ‘The response of Alexandra Walker was not the response that you might expect in a concerned mother who had just been informed that her daughter had a broken leg that had gone untreated for several days or weeks.
‘Instead, Alexandra Walker became aggressive and stood up to challenge the nurse.
‘She told her that it was unnecessary and over the top for her daughter to be admitted.
‘She demanded to see another doctor and then declared that she was taking her home anyway.’
Mr Wright said Isabelle was admitted and nursing and paediatric staff had safe-guarding concerns.
But ‘differences of opinion’ between paediatric and orthopaedic teams meant the toddler was discharged back to her mother the next day, the court heard.
Mr Wright said: ‘In a terrible twist of fate, you will hear that one of the nurses who expressed the greatest concern about the leg injury on September 2 would be working in the emergency department on September 13 when Isabelle was readmitted 10 days later having sustained her fatal head injury.’
After she was allowed home with her daughter, Walker continued to complain about the way she had been treated and looked up how to win compensation against the NHS, the prosecution said.
Jurors were also taken through messages between Walker and her mother discussing Simpson, in which she called him a ‘paedo’.
Walker referred to Simpson not wanting to spend time with her alone and preferred to see her and Isabelle, telling her mother: ‘It’s weird.’
Weeks before Isabelle’s death, Walker used her phone to search the sex offenders register in Middlesbrough, Mr Wright said.
He told jurors the search was made in the context of his relationship with Isabelle.
Mr Wright said Walker revealed to her mother that Simpson had bathed Isabelle when he was alone looking after the toddler.
‘The prosecution are going to invite you to conclude in due course that Alexandra Walker is by this time becoming concerned about Harrison Simpson and his interactions with her daughter,’ he said.
Despite that apparent concern, the court heard Walker left Isabelle alone with Simpson the very next evening.
Mr Wright told jurors: ‘For weeks this child had been violently assaulted and her death, by that terrible head injury, was simply the end point in that campaign of violence to which she had been subjected.’
He said both Walker and Simpson had ‘ample opportunity’ to harm the toddler and in such a small, two-bedroom house ‘each must have been aware of the abuse’.
Mr Wright said: ‘When Isabelle was gravely unwell in the week before she died no medical assistance was sought, and even on the day she died, after her heart had stopped and she appeared to all intents and purposes to be dead, Alexandra Walker only called an ambulance when her stepfather told her to, long after she must have known her daughter was critically ill.
‘All of this, we will invite you to conclude, was not because of panic about Isabelle, or a failure to appreciate how ill she was.
‘To the contrary, Alexandra Walker and Harrison Simpson each plainly knew how ill she was, they knew that because they had caused her injuries and their failure to summon help from doctors and finally the emergency services, was an act of self-preservation.
‘They knew the questions that would come and had no convincing answer for them.’
The trial continues.
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