10yrs for pair who put tot in ‘death cage’
A MUM and her ex-boyfriend have been jailed for 10 years over the death of a 19-month girl left tied face down to a “cage bed”.
Lauren Coyle and Reece Hitchcott, both 20, were found guilty of causing or allowing the death of Ellie May Minshull Coyle.
The tot suffocated while “forcibly restrained by ligatures” in a bed made into a “cage” with cot sides tied together. Liverpool crown court heard the pair, from Preston, had trouble getting the child to sleep.
Mr Justice Dove told them: “The bed you created was quite literally a death trap.”
Coyle and Hitchcott, who denied tying Ellie May up, were also convicted of cruelty by caging and restraining her but cleared of manslaughter.