Mylee shopping with dad ‘just 2 hours before he killed her’
WANDERING around a shop with the father accused of killing her, this is Mylee Billingham just over two hours before she was stabbed to death.
Footage of the eight-year-old happily following William Billingham around a Costcutter store was played to his murder trial yesterday as the 55-yearsat slumped in the dock with his face in his hands.
Mylee could be seen apparently choosing what appears to be a whoopee cushion at the store and grinning as she hurries to join Billingham at the counter.
The pair left the store with the toy, two bottles of water and a four-pack of beer or cider and returned to Billingham’s housing association bungalow – where he is accused of stabbing Mylee later that January night.
Jurors have been told that the defendant, who has his daughter’s pink rucksack over his shoulder, entered the shop with Mylee at 6.53pm and left shortly before 7pm. Police later attended reports of Billingham wielding a knife after a 999 call made by Mylee’s mother, Tracey Taundry, who had watched as the screaming child was dragged by her coat hood into the bungalow by her ex-partner.
A police officer broke down in the witness box at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday as she told how she found Mylee in a pool of blood under her father on the kitchen floor. PC Stacey Banbury and PC Samantha Gray, of West Midlands Police, were the first on the scene after the 9.14pm emergency call. PC Banbury sobbed as she described seeing Mylee’s legs beneath Billingham, who had stabbed himself twice in the liver and was lying face down and making a ‘whimpering’ noise.
After handcuffing the father-ofsix and dragging him into the living room, the officer went back to Mylee and told jurors: ‘There was a lot of blood around Mylee’s neck and shoulder. I put my finger on her pulse.
‘She was wearing a dark green jacket. I unzipped it to check for any injuries to her neck and shoulder.
‘I lifted up her shift and saw a puncture to her stomach area. I checked her pulse and airways before beginning CPR. Then firearms officers arrived and took over.’
Mylee was taken to Birmingham Children’s Hospital but was pronounced dead of a single stab wound to the chest two hours later. Bisexual Miss Taundry, who is mother to three of Billingham’s six children, told jurors she had agreed that Mylee could have a sleepover at Billingham’s bungalow – and he went on to post a picture on Facebook of the child eating pizza in bed there after the pair had returned from the Costcutter store.
But soon after the picture was taken, Mylee complained of having a sore throat and asked for her mother to come and collect her.
Billingham threatened Miss Taundry, who had recently embarked on a same-sex relationship, with the knife when she arrived to take Mylee home, then dragged the screaming child back inside the bungalow.
Prosecuting, Karim Khalil QC has told jurors: ‘The killing is most likely explained by the jealousy that the defendant felt towards Tracey Taundry and her new partner: he believed that he would see less of the children and he was not prepared to accept this situation, especially with regard to Mylee.’
Billingham denies making a threat to kill and murder.
The case continues.