Thumbs up.. mum on bus with dead baby
Moment couple tried to cover up a tragedy
TWO drug addicts who staged their 16-week-old daughter’s death on a bus face jail after a harrowing trial.
Jeffrey Wiltshire and Rosalin Baker were yesterday cleared of murder but found guilty of causing Imani’s death.
Before she died last September, the baby had been attacked three times.
She had 40 rib fractures, a broken wrist, terrible head injuries and was in “very significant pain and distress”, an Old Bailey jury heard. But the couple had a devious plan to cover-up what had happened. CCTV shows Wiltshire, 52, giving Baker, 25, a sickening thumbs-up gesture as she got on the No 25 bus, dead Imani strapped to her chest in a sling.
Baker was filmed as she sat on the lower deck, sending text messages and speaking on her mobile phone for some 20 minutes before looking at her daughter for the first time.
Then, putting the charade into action, she beckoned a passenger over who found Imani not breathing.
Panicked Fjoralba Shmitz took the baby in her arms. Another passenger, Viviana Caidedo, called an ambulance and attempted CPR. Baker sat using her phone as others on the bus tried to help.
The bus was stopped in Stratford, East London and Imani was taken to Newham General Hospital where she was pronounced dead.
During their trial, Baker insisted her abusive and controlling boyfriend had tried to “frame” her by forcing her on the bus with dead Imani, who had been on the child protection register.
But ex-rapper Wiltshire, who claimed to have fathered 25 children, insisted: “I’m not a life taker, I’m a baby maker.”
Adjourning sentence, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said: “Imani’s life must have been painful, distressing and bewildering. Failure at the very least to protect her is a serious matter indeed that must result in a custodial sentence.”
DCI Gary Holmes said: “To know Imani was probably in considerable pain in her last hours is heart-rending.
“From the moment she was born the odds were stacked against her.”