Dad accused of killing his baby denies lying to police He says answers ‘didn’t come out the way they should have’
ADAD accused of killing his baby daughter by shaking her has denied lying to the police.
Darin Harvey, 25, is on trial accused of murdering Felicity-may Harvey at their home in Heywood in January 2021. He denies the charge. Felicity-may was born with a cleft palate and during the trial, jurors heard her mother and Darin’s partner, Heather Connolly, struggled to feed her.
Recalling the events of January 8, Mr Harvey said he and Ms Connolly had eaten lunch at their home on Birch Road, Wardle, Rochdale and around 2pm Ms Connolly had said she was going upstairs to do her hair and have a cigarette.
He said she then came downstairs.
It was at this point, he says, that he went upstairs to feed Felicity-may.
He said he noticed the hood of the Moses basket was up when he always leaves it down and a towel used for wiping Felicitymay’s sick was on the floor.
Mr Harvey said Felicitymay’s head was facing a different direction than when he had left her.
On picking her up by placing his hands under her armpits, he said: “Her eyes were rolling back, her head was tilting backwards.
“I walked to the edge of the bed, just putting her in my arms.
“She was blue in the face, not fully but in patches.”
He said he realised she was “not well.”
An ambulance was called but Felicity-may tragically died.
Giving evidence at Bolton Crown Court for the second day, Mr Harvey denied lying to the police about whether it was he or Heather who had carried out an 11.30am feed, having initially said it was Ms Connolly before then saying it was him.
He also denied lying to the police when, in an interview with officers, he said Felicity was moving her arms when he found her.
A clip of the police interview, played in court, appeared to show Mr Harvey trying to mimic her movements by motioning with his own arms.
Prosecuting, Mr Tim Storrie put it to Mr Harvey that when evidence, served on May 24, proved it would not have been possible for Felicity to have made such movements due to the extent of her injuries, he had changed his story.
Mr Harvey said he tended to move his arms about when he was nervous.
Mr Harvey denied lying to the police, saying that he was “In a very, very vulnerable position” and felt “intimidated” by the detectives interviewing him.
The court heard how having been arrested for suspected murder at 8.38pm on the day in question, he spent the night in a police cell before being interviewed twice the following day. He told Mr Storrie: “They were not lies. They just did not come out in the way they should have come out.
“But my little girl was in hospital and I was being accused of killing her.
“All I could think about was Felicity and that I wanted to be with her but I could not because I was in a police cell.
“I felt like my life was over. “I wanted to be with her. “It was a shock, I could not understand how and why it would happen.”
He told Mr Storrie: “Somebody has caused very, very serious injuries to my little girl and it wasn’t me.
“I did not cause these horrible, horrible injuries to my little girl that I loved with all my heart.”
Mr Storrie suggested to Mr Harvey: “You thought you would give them a tale.
“You were still trying to work out what to say to the police weren’t you?”
Mr Harvey said: “No, I disagree with that strongly.”
The prosecutor stated: “You told the lies to the police because you knew you had actually shaken Felicity.”
Mr Harvey replied: “That is not true.”
Mr Storrie said: “Was it the case that when you were feeding her you thought she was choking and you shook her?”
Mr Harvey answered “no.”
Mr Storrie continued: “You said everything you could to not be thought of as the person who fed Felicity that afternoon.
“You callously said you were motivated by concern for the little girl you killed.”
Mr Harvey responded: “Again that is not true.”
Mr Storrie asked: “Did you do something to her that you immediately regretted?”
Mr Harvey denied this was the case, turning to the jurors and saying: “Members of the jury, I did not feed Felicity between 2pm and 2.30pm and that is the truth.”
Defending, Mr James Mulholland KC asked Mr Harvey if “he was thinking
●●Felicity-may Harvey straight” in the interviews, following a night in a cell with the first ending at 2.16pm and the second starting at 9.25pm.
Mr Harvey said: “No, not at all.”
Mr Harvey added that since the May 24 evidence was served, he “had had a lot of time to reassess.”
He said he had “no reason to look to see if there was anything out of the ordinary when he first picked her (Felicity) up.”
Mr Mulholland asked: “Did you think the police were being neutral during the interviews?”
Mr Harvey said. “no.”