Ex-care worker guilty of murdering boy

A WOMAN has been convicted of murdering a one-year-old boy she was hoping to adopt.

Leiland-james Corkill was placed with Laura Castle, 38, and her husband Scott Castle, 35, by authorities in Cumbria less than five months before his death from catastrophic head injuries.

The youngster was a “looked-after child” who was taken into care at birth before he was approved to live with his prospective adoptive parents from August 2020.

Laura Castle rang for an ambulance on the morning of January 6 last year and reported Leiland-james had fallen off the sofa, injured his head and was struggling to breathe.

However, hospital medical staff raised concerns because the extent of his injuries did not match her account.

Leiland-james died the following day as Laura Castle maintained to police, as well as family and friends, that the death was a tragic accident while her husband, a night shift worker, was asleep.

She stuck to her story until the day the jury was sworn in last month for her trial at Preston Crown Court, when she pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Her new version of events was she had shaken the child after he had not stopped crying at breakfast and his head hit the arm-rest of the sofa before he fell off her knee on to the floor.

The former care worker denied intending to kill Leiland-james or seriously harm him, but jurors took just two-andhalf hours yesterday to convict her of murder.

She was also convicted of child cruelty and will be sentenced today.

Scott Castle, a machinist at defence firm BAE Systems, was found not guilty of allowing the boy’s death. He was also cleared of child cruelty.

He said he never had any concerns anything bad was going to happen with the boy and he trusted his wife.