Childminder loses appeal over 'shaken baby' killing

Keran Henderson, of Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, had always protested her innocence over the death of 11-month-old Maeve Sheppard.

But yesterday the Court of Appeal rejected submissions on her behalf that her conviction was "unsafe".

Henderson, who was jailed for three years, has completed her sentence and was not in court.

A jury at Reading Crown Court convicted Henderson, a mother of two who is originally from Yorkshire, of manslaughter by a majority of 10 to two at the end of a five-week trial.

Appeal judge Lord Justice Moses, sitting with Mrs Justice Rafferty and Mr Justice Hedley, described how "every effort has been made to explore every available avenue in an understandable attempt to undermine the safety of the jury's verdict".

He said: "We describe the attempts as understandable because there remains the unsolved mystery of how so admired a childminder as this appellant should have been responsible for the use of excessive force, even momentarily, when handling this baby.

"But that was a problem with which the jury had to grapple.

"There is no basis upon which this court can say that the jury was not entitled after being properly directed by (trial judge) Mr Justice Keith to conclude that the expert evidence proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant had shaken Maeve with excessive force."

The prosecution case which led to Henderson's 2007 manslaughter conviction was that injuries suffered by Maeve were caused by violent shaking, but Henderson, who had seven years' experience as a childminder and was also a Beaver Scout leader, claimed the child had a seizure while she was changing her nappy.

She was in sole charge of Maeve when she was taken to hospital unconscious and critically ill with brain injuries in March 2005.

The childminder, who ran her business from her home in Iver Heath, was hired in January 2005 to look after Maeve.

Ruth and Mark Sheppard, mother and father of Maeve, spoke after she was jailed.

"We will never be able to forgive this woman for what she took away from us," they said in a statement at the time.

Mrs Sheppard wrote a victim impact statement, which the judge asked her not to read out to the court for fear of further unrest in the public gallery from Henderson's family, who reacted angrily to the jury's verdict.