Nanny who shook baby to death was in the UK illegally
A VIETNAMESE nanny working illegally in the UK when she shook an 11-month-old girl to death has been jailed for six years.
Anh Pham was seen holding Tina Nguyen asking neighbours to ‘help me’ after running out into the street for help.
The 27-year-old, who speaks little English and who had no right to remain in Britain, had begun babysitting for Tina’s mother, Huong Nguyen, a month earlier. She earned £30 a day and had looked after the baby ten times. But on the penultimate day, the baby was unwell with a running nose, a cold and teething, wanting to be carried most of the day, the Old Bailey heard.
‘It was a long day for you because Tina’s mother did not come to collect her because she was running late,’ Mr Justice Martin Spencer told her. Pham was left on her own with Tina for a second day after her boyfriend left the house, the court heard. ‘That must have annoyed you because it was going to be an onerous day looking after Tina because it had been the other day,’ Mr Spencer said.
‘Tina vomited on two occasions necessitating you to clean up after her. Shortly before midday, you shook Tina’s head and probably also threw her.’
Tina was taken to Queen’s Hospital in Romford, east London, before being transferred to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, where it was discovered that her brain had shifted 15mm, causing it to swell and pressure to build.
The baby died from a bleed on the brain caused by a significant use of force on October 5, 2017.
Prosecutor Hugh Davies QC said: ‘The death of any child is likely to be emotive, most especially where an adult on whom they were wholly dependent is said to have caused it.’
He added: ‘What caused this death was traumatic and consistent with Tina having been shaken with a significant degree of force or a blow to her left-hand forehead.
‘[Pham] may have momentarily have lost control and in
‘Significant degree of force’
frustration shaken Tina or hit her in a way that caused the movement of the brain that caused this injury.’
In a victim statement, Ms Nguyen, of Barking, described her daughter as ‘a gift from God’ after she had left her husband and two other children after fleeing Vietnam.
‘I felt as if everything had collapsed on me,’ she said. ‘I wanted to hold her in my arms to hold her hands.
‘I was allowed in to hold Tina at about 8pm. I was praying and I was crying, I wished for a miracle to happen. I said to Tina, “Don’t leave.”’
Pham, of Barking, was convicted of manslaughter last month. Yesterday, she was sentenced to six years in jail. She was told she was likely to face deportation proceedings.