The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
‘Evil’ killer of toddler jailed for 25 years
The woman who murdered 16-month-old Star Hobson must serve a minimum of 25 years in prison, according to a judge who said the toddler’s short life was “marked by neglect, cruelty and injury”.
Bouncer and security guard Savannah Brockhill, 28, was jailed for life at Bradford Crown Court alongside Star’s mother, Frankie Smith, 20, who was handed an eight-year sentence for allowing her daughter’s death.
The killing of Star and details of how she was subjected to months of assaults and psychological harm have caused a national outcry, especially as the trial came so soon after the case of murdered Solihull six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-hughes.
Star’s great-grandfather, David Fawcett, has led the questioning over why social services and police did not act despite five family members and friends raising concerns with the authorities in the eight months before she died.
Sentencing Brockhill and Smith yesterday, the judge, Mrs Justice Lambert said: “Those who loved Star are as bewildered as they are angry and sad at all that has been lost.”
The judge told the pair: “(Star) was 16 months when she was murdered.
“Her short life was marked by neglect, cruelty and injury.”
The judge said the “fatal punch or kick” to Star caused the toddler to lose half the blood in her body and damaged her internal organs.
The judge said: “The level of force required to inflict these injuries must have been massive – similar to those forces associated with a road traffic accident.”
The judge said Star was also found to have suffered two brain injuries, numerous ribs fractures, the fracture and refracture of her leg and a skull fracture.
After she was found guilty of murder, Brockhill was branded “pure evil” by Mr Fawcett.
Keighley and Ilkley Tory MP Robbie Moore said Bradford Council leaders should “hang their heads in shame” and resign.
Star was taken to hospital from the flat where she lived with Smith in Wesley Place, Keighley, on September 22 2020, but her injuries were “utterly catastrophic”, prosecutors told the two-month trial.
Brockhill, of Hawthorn Close, Keighley, and Smith, of Wesley Place, Halifax Road, Keighley, convinced social workers that marks on Star were accidental or that the complaints were made maliciously.