Mum who performed ‘cooking sport’ on her cellphone whereas child son drowned thrown in jail
Danielle Massey denied leaving her seven-month-old son unsupervised while having a bath for a long period of time, but her phone says one app was in use for almost 30 minutes at the time of death
A mother who was playing on her phone while her seven-month-old son drowned in the bath has been jailed for manslaughter for seven years.
Tot Charlie Goodall died after he fell over in an unstable bath seat as his mum Danielle Massey left him alone “for a prolonged period of time”, including while she played a cooking game at their home in County Durham. Charlie was found unresponsive in the bath when police were called by the paramedics to a house in West Chilton Terrace, Chilton, on February 16, 2022.
The 31-year-old pleaded guilty to manslaughter, accepting responsibility for not fixing the seat properly to the bath.
However, Massey denied intentionally leaving the infant unsupervised for a prolonged period of time, reports TeessideLive.
She told the court she had left the ground floor bathroom to go upstairs to fetch a towel for the bub. Massey, who is asthmatic, claimed she then went back downstairs and had to sit on the sofa to catch her breath before closing her eyes. She said she went into the bathroom to find Charlie unresponsive in the bath and called 999.
Massey gave varying accounts of how long Charlie was left alone, ranging from two minutes to 10. However, data taken from app Cooking Madness: A Chef’s Game revealed the game had been in use for 26 minutes during the time Charlie was alone.
Massey argued that the game had just been running in the background and that she had not been actively playing it at the time of her son’s death.
On Wednesday, a judge rejected Massey’s version of events calling them “implausible” and accused the mum of concealing the truth.
Mr Justice Goss said: “[The defendant has given] various changing, inconsistent and implausible accounts of what happened in that interval to try and conceal the truth, which is that she had not properly prepared for the bathing of Charlie and was doing what she wanted to do, engaging in various activities on her phone including using a gaming app, confident in the belief Charlie was in his chair, in the bath.
“I reject her account of being exhausted and closing her eyes, I am sure she was active and awake.”
Prosecutor Richard Wright KC argued that Charlie’s cause of death by drowning was not due solely to the improperly attached bath, but because he was in the bath seat “unsupervised over a prolonged period of time”.
