Paramedic cleared of killing her fostered baby girl

A PARAMEDIC accused of manslaughter over the death of her baby foster daughter has been found not guilty.

Sarah Higgins was cleared by jurors who returned a unanimous verdict after hearing evidence for three-and-a-half weeks about the death of 10-month-old Skyla Giller.

Prosecutors claimed Miss Higgins, a Yorkshire Ambulance Service paramedic, caused the fatal injuries to Skyla after losing her temper and subjecting her to a “violent action”.

Skyla died at Leeds General Infirmary two days after Miss Higgins dialled 999 and told an operator that she had dropped the baby while feeding her.

Miss Higgins and her former partner Martin Dobson are Yorkshire Ambulance Service paramedics and were in the process of adopting Skyla at the time of her death on August 26, 2017.

At the start of the trial on February 25 the jury was played a recording of the emergency call Miss Higgins made from her then home on Oakfield Grove, Skelmanthorpe, Huddersfield.

The defendant told the operator that Skyla was unconscious and unresponsive after she had dropped her.

Miss Higgins, 42, now of Hillcrest Avenue, Townville, Castleford, told the jury how the baby “slipped from my grasp” and fell to the floor. Skyla suffered a catastrophic brain injury and died after surgery,

After the case, Detective Superintendent Jim Griffiths Senior, of West Yorkshire Police, said: “Expert medical advice was sought in the case and a prosecution was believed to be in the public interest for that evidence to be tested by a jury.”