We will never forgive nursery worker who killed our baby
Parents’ grief after daughter dies strapped face down to a bean bag
THE parents of a baby killed by a callous nursery worker said yesterday that they would never forgive her.
John and Katie Meehan spoke for the first time about the loss of their ninemonth-old daughter Genevieve after jurors found Kate Roughley guilty of manslaughter by ill-treatment.
Mr Meehan, a barrister, said: ‘We will never forgive the callousness of Kate Roughley’s actions. She was entrusted with the care of our daughter but instead treated her with contempt.’
Genevieve suffocated at the Tiny Toes nursery in Cheadle, near Manchester, on May 9, 2022 after Roughley strapped Genevieve face down on a bean bag, covering her with a blanket and leaving her for more than 90 minutes.
Prosecutors said the 37- year- old displayed a ‘lack of sympathy’ towards children. CCTV showed her ignoring the baby’s crying and desperate last movements as she struggled to survive while tightly strapped to the bean bag.
Roughley, who had 17 years’ experience as a nursery worker but no children of her own, then lied to cover up what she had done, claiming that she constantly checked on babies in her care. The prosecution said her ‘deliberate conduct’, ‘ill-treatment’ and ‘ lack of any effective monitoring’ caused the death of Genevieve, known affectionately by her parents as ‘Gigi’.
Jurors returned their guilty verdict after a month-long trial at Manchester Crown Court.
The judge, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen, adjourned sentencing until tomorrow and Roughley, who faces a possible life term, was remanded in custody.
Outside court, Mr Meehan, 38,
stood with his tearful solicitor wife Katie, 39, paying tribute to their daughter – and attacking Roughley for putting them through the ordeal of a trial ‘when she knew what she had done’.
He described Genevieve’s life as one of ‘promise and wonder’, adding: ‘We’ll never accept the cruelty of her life being taken away.
‘Genevieve’s loss has destroyed our family. We grieve for her every day. We long desperately to see her smile, hear her laugh and feel
her warm embrace. Her absence is a wound that will never heal. We are so desperate for her to be in our arms as she should be and watching her put on her school uniform in September when she would have started pre-school.
‘Instead, we are here in a place we could never have imagined when we took her to nursery that day… where she was meant to be safe and cared for. The pain of her loss is beyond any measure.’
The Meehans, who have an
older daughter, said they did not want to see Genevieve defined by the manner of her death and that she ‘deserves to be remembered for the wonderful person she was’.
On the day of the tragedy, deputy manager Roughley was acting as leader in the nursery’s understaffed baby room where she was one of only two workers looking after 11 infants.
Genevieve had been dropped off by her parents at 9am and was
found unresponsive at 3.12pm. She could not be revived and was pronounced dead in hospital. Tiny Toes, which has since closed, had been run since 2016 by Franck Pelle, 59, his wife Karen, 66, and their daughter Grace, 29. They were unavailable for comment.
The week before Genevieve’s death, Roughley posted a cryptic message on her Facebook page: ‘Sometimes I feel bad for not calling or checking up on people but then I realize [sic] the phone works both ways and there ain’t nobody checking up on me.’
Stockport Council, which covers Cheadle, said it would be investigating the nursery under responsibilities ‘set out by the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 in respect of any accident or death in a childcare setting’.
The authority confirmed it has been working with Greater Manchester Police since 2022.
Roughley lived for over a decade in a suburb of Stockport with her partner. Neighbours said she had been living her wife, but the two had split less than six months after their wedding.
Roughley is thought to have worked at a local supermarket after Tiny Toes nursery closed.
‘A wound that will never heal’