A mum and her new boyfriend have been convicted of murdering her two-year-old daughter, who was sexually abused before she suffered a catastrophic head injury.
Isabelle Welsh suffered 21 broken bones in the weeks before she collapsed at her home last September. Her mother, Alexandra Walker, 26, and Harrison Simpson, 22, denied murder, allowing the death of a child, sexual assault and child cruelty.
But a jury at Teesside Crown Court convicted them of murder on Tuesday (July 28). They were also convicted of child cruelty. Simpson was convicted of sexual assault on the toddler, while Walker was cleared of that charge. Here’s a closer look at what came out of the trial.
Google searches and her injuries
As Isabelle was dying at the property in Thornaby, Teesside, Walker delayed ringing 999 despite Googling “why would my toddler be bleeding”. The court heard she smoked a cigarette in her kitchen.
She first called her step-father to come round and it was only on his instruction that she finally alerted the emergency services. When paramedics arrived within a minute, they found bruises all over the little girl’s body.
Isabelle was not breathing and was cold to the touch as medics battled in vain to save her and she died the next day in hospital.
A post mortem revealed the extent of her injuries – her skull was fractured, her brain damaged and she had been sexually assaulted. Experts told the jury that Isabelle had been shaken and her head impacted against a wall or the floor.
Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, told the court: “For weeks this child had been violently assaulted and her death, by that terrible head injury, was simply the end point in that campaign of violence to which she had been subjected.”
Paedophile concerns
The couple had met on Facebook Dating earlier last summer and Simpson became a regular visitor to the house. During her short relationship with Simpson, Walker voiced concerns that he might be a paedophile.
She thought it was “weird” that he preferred to see her and Isabelle at the same time, rather than be alone with his girlfriend. But Walker did not break up with him, even though she was suspicious enough to check if he was on the Sex Offenders’ Register.
Arrests
Both Simpson and Walker were arrested after Isabelle’s death. Simpson declined to answer police questions and did not give evidence at the trial.
Walker gave various accounts of what happened, eventually telling police she now believed her boyfriend had been abusing her daughter. But the prosecution said Walker did not protect her daughter and “failed to act when action was most urgently required”.
Her dad’s heartbreaking statement
Outside court, Isabelle’s father Josh Welsh said justice had been done and that his daughter’s murderers deserved whole-life sentences.
Asked what she meant to him, Mr Welsh said: “My little girl… my whole life has been shattered, my whole family. My sisters and brothers have lost their niece. It means the world to me that we have justice for Isabelle.”
What happens to the pair now?
Walker and Simpson will be sentenced on Thursday (July 30). The trial judge, Ms Justice Norton thanked the jury for their work on such a “difficult” case.
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