Baby girl’s parents ‘blame each other for death’

The parents of a seven-week-old girl who died after suffering a catalogue of catastrophic injuries during episodes of “violence or trauma” blame each other, a court has heard.

Lee Davison and Jessica Hopkinson, the parents of baby Kristal Davison, are on trial charged with causing or allowing the death of a child.

Kristal had suffered damage to her brain and skull, fractures to her ribs and legs and injuries to her eyes caused over a number of weeks before her death, Leeds Crown Court was told yesterday.

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Julian Goose QC, prosecuting, said: “Kristal was subjected to at least two, possibly more, episodes of violence or trauma in her short life.”

He added: “Both defendants admit that Kristal was in their care at all material times. How she came to suffer so many injuries with such a catastrophic effect is only known by the two defendants. Both of them deny causing any injury to Kristal.”

Davison, 28, called an ambulance on the morning of April 12 last year reporting that Kristal was gasping for breath. When paramedics arrived, the baby was found to be pale, limp and lifeless and was taken to hospital, where she died the following day.

A post-mortem examination found bruising and grazes to her head and face, bruising to her scalp, injuries to her skull, bleeding to the brain and eyes, healing rib fractures and healing fractures to the thigh and bone.

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Mr Goose said: “Kristal was subjected to at least two and quite possibly more episodes of violence or trauma at different times to different parts of her body, including her head, ribcage and left leg.

“The injuries relating to the brain, the eyes and bleeding to the surface of the brain were indicative of violent shaking. The fractures to the skull establish there was a significant blunt force applied to the head. The fractures to the ribs and to the left leg established that she had been subjected to violence to those parts of her body.”

Mr Goose said Davison and Hopkinson, from Ashleigh Avenue, Pontefract, West Yorkshire, both refused to tell the truth to police.

During interviews, each said they did not know anything about the injuries and claimed the other must have harmed the baby.

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The couple’s relationship, which began in early 2011, was described as “at times volatile”, with neighbours hearing frequent arguments involving shouting, banging and swearing.

Davison told police he had not harmed or roughly handled Kristal and had not seen Hopkinson do so either.

He went on to say, however, it could have been his girlfriend, whom he described as always “snappy and moody”, because he had not done it and Kristal was with him around the clock.

He added he had seen Hopkinson “slam” the baby on to her changing mat and on to the sofa when she was angry.

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Hopkinson, 19, denied any knowledge of Kristal’s injuries and said she did not think Davison was the “type of lad to do it”, although she described him as bad-tempered. She said he would shake Kristal gently to wake her up and she had told him off for shaking the baby.

She added Davison must have injured Kristal without her knowing and said “if it wasn’t me, it must have been him”.

After she was charged, Hopkinson requested a further interview in which she told police: “It were Lee who did it.”

She said he would throw the baby down in her Moses basket and cot and that one night she heard a big bang, which she knew was something to do with her daughter as she started crying soon afterwards.

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Mr Goose told the jury the defendants could not be charged with murder or manslaughter because it could not be proved which of them used the violence that caused Kristal’s death.

Mr Goose said: “Whether they caused Kristal’s death themselves, separately or together, or they failed to take all reasonable steps to protect her from the serious and obvious risk of injury to her at the hands of the other, the prosecution say that they are both guilty of causing or allowing the death of Kristal Davison.”

The trial is expected to last around four weeks.