A mother accused of sexually abusing and murdering her two-year-old daughter delayed calling 999 despite obvious signs that the toddler was gravely ill, a court has heard.
Isabelle Welsh, two, was found to have suffered 21 different broken bones in the weeks before she died last September after collapsing at her home in Thornaby, Teesside, jurors were told.
Her mother Alexandra Walker, 25, and boyfriend Harrison Simpson, 22, deny murder, sexual assault, allowing the death of a child and child cruelty.
Prosecution Details the Day of Death
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, said the day before Isabelle died from a severe head injury, the defendants had been up late drinking and smoking cannabis. While Walker stayed in bed the following morning, Simpson was up and in sole care of the toddler, Teesside Crown Court heard. He later put Isabelle to bed and around 3pm on September 13, Simpson left the two-bedroom property.
Mr Wright said that within 10 minutes, Walker googled “Why would my toddler be bleeding”. Internal CCTV from her home recorded her saying “You’re scaring me” and then she googled “what should I do if my child has blood in his stool”. Around this time, Walker went into the kitchen to smoke a cigarette, jurors were told.
Mr Wright said: “It is absolutely obvious that by this time Isabelle is gravely ill. She is quite simply dying. And yet, despite the searches on Google, Alexandra Walker does nothing.”
Delay in Calling Emergency Services
Around an hour after Simpson left, Walker called her stepfather and he arrived at around 4.15pm and immediately told her to call 999. Earlier that month, Walker had taken her daughter to hospital after Isabelle suffered a broken tibia, and she had explained the injury to medics as Isabelle hurting herself by poking her leg through the cot.
Opening the case to the jury, Mr Wright said: “In due course you may want to consider why there was very significant delay in summoning the emergency services. One explanation of course is that Alexandra Walker knew that this time she would not be able to bluff and bluster her way out of the very difficult questions that she knew she would be asked at hospital.”
Paramedics arrived within a minute and Isabelle was rushed to hospital, but she died in the early hours of the next day.
Defendants' Accounts
Walker and Simpson were arrested and the mother said her boyfriend was her new partner, that they had been together for a month, and that she had raised concerns about bruises on Isabelle’s body but he had denied being responsible. In a separate, later interview, she told police she now realised Simpson had been abusing her daughter.
Simpson did not answer questions during interviews, Mr Wright said. He told the court: “The prosecution will invite you to conclude that Alexandra Walker was telling lies and that Harrison Simpson said nothing because he had no answer at all to the questions that were being asked. They both knew exactly what had happened to Isabelle because in the weeks before her death they had each subjected her to violence culminating in the infliction of that terrible, fatal head injury.”
Pattern of Abuse
Mr Wright said both defendants were aware of what was happening to Isabelle which would have been “obvious”. He said: “She was distressed, she was unwell, deteriorating. These were not hidden events, they were not fleeting or isolated incidents. This was a pattern of abuse over time, in a small house in the presence of both defendants.”
The trial continues.
