Aunt is accused of causing death of niece by violently shaking her
AN AUNT accused of causing fatal head injuries to her baby niece by violently shaking her has told a jury the infant became unwell during feeding, and she did not harm her.
Chuanfang Zheng, 30, who denies the manslaughter of seven-monthold Phoebe Guo, told the police in her interview: “I didn’t do it. I did not shake her.”
Zheng was babysitting the tot at the time of the alleged offence.
Giving evidence in her defence at Leicester Crown Court, she described how the tot was crying before appearing to go pale, fall asleep and struggle to breathe.
Speaking through an interpreter, Zheng said: “I was so scared; panicked.”
The prosecution alleges Zheng, who was also caring for her own three small children when the alleged incident happened, lost control and caused non-accidental brain damage, also known as “shaken baby” injury, on March 22, 2015.
Prosecutor Adrian Langdale claims that within half an hour of the child being left in the sole care of Zheng, her paternal aunt, at her then flat in Linden Drive, Lutterworth, the baby suffered “a catastrophic injury with significant bleeding on the brain and behind the eyes - and had lapsed into unconsciousness”.
Zheng told the jury the baby appeared well when Phoebe’s mother handed her over, but she later became unsettled during a feed and she had rocked her “very gently” to settle her.
She said: “I saw her closing her eyes slowly. Her body became soft; I feel she was asleep.”
She said Phoebe went pale, floppy and had difficulty breathing, so she checked her heart was beating, administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and gently tapped her on the back.
The defendant then ran a couple of doors from her flat to the familyrun Chinese takeaway, the Great Wall, where Phoebe’s parents and her husband all worked, with the unconscious baby in her arms, at about 7pm.
Zheng said: “Everyone was very panicked.”
She said: “My husband was trying to do resuscitation; I tried to as well but at that time it was chaos.”
Zheng claimed that Phoebe’s mother, Ling Ling Wang, asked if there was something in the baby’s mouth, then “put the baby upside down” and began moving the child up and down.
She added: “I saw her doing this and I said, ‘Stop doing that’.
“I said, ‘You don’t know exactly what happened to the child, if you put the baby upside down it will cause harm to the baby’.”
Phoebe’s mother, who gave evidence earlier in the trial, denied turning the baby upside down as Zheng claimed.
Medical experts at three hospitals where Phoebe received emergency care were unable to save her, and she died three days later having never regained consciousness.
Zheng has yet to be cross-examined by the prosecution.
The trial continues.