Toddler ‘killed by mum and her female partner’
... then couple tried to blame a two-year-old in ‘absurd’ claim
A TODDLER was beaten to death by her mother and her woman partner who then tried to blame a two-year-old, a court heard yesterday.
Star Hobson was only 16 months old when she was allegedly punched, kicked or stamped on in the living room at home, causing massive internal bleeding.
At the time she was in the care of her mother Frankie Smith, 20, and partner Savannah Brockhill, 28, who said another child may have fallen off the sofa on to her – an explanation branded ‘absurd’ by the prosecution.
The girl’s violent death followed many months of mistreatment, prosecutor Alistair MacDonald, QC, told a jury at Bradford Crown Court. Smith had split from the girl’s father when Star was six months old.
Star had lived with Smith’s grandmother and her partner from February 2020 until late April and was said to be a happy baby.
But the prosecutor said that changed when she returned to live with her mother. Brockhill, who worked as a pub bouncer, regarded herself as a parent and would habitually slap, choke and beat Star. She also inflicted bruises on Smith, who was 19.
Friends and relatives were concerned about Star’s treatment and injuries but no one was able to intervene, the court heard. Mr MacDonald said: ‘Social services, who were aware of Star’s case, were kept away from Star, as were many of her family in the last period of her life.’
A post-mortem examination indicated the months of pain and misery suffered by Star before her violent death in September last year at a flat in Keighley, West Yorkshire.
Her skull was fractured by ‘a heavy blow to the back of the head’ in the ten days before she died. She also had an old brain injury and her shin bone had been fractured twice – once between two and four weeks before her death, and again in her
‘No chance of saving her’
final week – by ‘forceful twisting.’ Two ribs were fractured weeks earlier and there were ‘substantial areas of bruising’.
The court heard Star would have been in terrible pain. It was also told of a ‘slam choke’ that Brockhill used on Star, which involved her being picked up and held by the neck and thrown on to the bed.
Mr MacDonald said: ‘Despite the catalogue of injuries, at no time was Star taken for medical help other, of course, than that 999 call made in the last hour and 15 minutes of Star’s life.’
Paramedics found an ‘apparently lifeless, pale baby wearing only a disposable nappy.’ Her breathing stopped in the ambulance.
Mr MacDonald said: ‘The injuries suffered by Star were so catastrophic there never was any real chance of saving her life.’ He said her liver was split and her lungs and pancreas bruised. Almost half of her blood had leaked into her abdominal cavity from a ruptured vein.
‘The abdominal injuries were caused by the application of blunt force in the form of a punch, kick or stamp,’ said the prosecutor.
‘The person or persons who inflicted these injuries intended, at the very least, to cause really serious harm to a helpless young child and… they are guilty of murder.’
Mr MacDonald said the couple tried to pin the blame on another child when questioned. He said: ‘That is nothing short of absurd.’
Brockhill and Smith deny murder and also causing or allowing Star’s death. The case continues.