A mother has gone on trial accused of shaking her baby daughter to death.

[Alison J Stevens]

A mother has gone on trial accused of shaking her baby daughter to death.

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Mother-weeps-999-played-court...

 

A mother has gone on trial accused of shaking her baby daughter to death.

Jodie Pick allegedly “lost her temper” with the infant, who suffered fatal head and brain injuries.

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   Jodie Pick

Pick denies the manslaughter of seven-week-old Courtney, who was born six-and-a-half weeks premature.

The 24-year-old, who has two other young children, claims she found Courtney collapsed and only shook her in a desperate attempt to revive her.

Leicester Crown Court was told that Pick rang the emergency services saying: “My baby is dead. Help me.”

In the call, Pick said that she had sat Courtney up in her Moses basket as she sometimes choked on her sick.

“She’s wriggled down and her bib has strangled her,” Pick said in her call. “I can’t get her to breathe.”

Pick sobbed several times as the prosecution opened its case against her.

During the opening, the jury was played a recording of Pick’s distressing 999 call.

The recording included the sound of Courtney’s paternal grandfather attempting to revive her, until the paramedics took over.

Sally Howes QC, prosecuting, told the jury: “Shortly before 1.30pm on Friday, May 1, 2009, Jodie Pick assaulted her baby daughter causing a severe head injury. Medical evidence indicates she was shaken, causing a catastrophic collapse.”

A medical team at Leicester Royal Infirmary were unable to resuscitate Courtney, and she died at 10.30pm.

Post-mortem examinations by a number of experts allegedly revealed there was no natural cause of death.

Ms Howes said: “There was a combination of head, brain and spinal chord injury with optic retinal bleeding in keeping with a non-accidental head injury. They were caused by shaking.”

In a police interview, Pick allegedly dropped her original account of Courtney being strangled by her bib, saying instead that the child had vomited and collapsed, and that she shook her to revive her.

Ms Howes said to the jury: “Why abandon the bib explanation if it was true? That’s because the post-mortem findings don’t support strangulation.

“The pathological evidence doesn’t support the account of Jodie Pick that Courtney’s collapse preceded the shaking.

“Her collapse was because she was shaken. If Pick, due to a momentary loss of temper, shook Courtney, that’s an unlawful act.”

Ms Howes said Pick did not have to intend serious harm to commit manslaughter.

A health visitor who regularly monitored Courtney’s development had no concerns about the baby’s welfare, the court was told. The health visitor, Leigh Gregory, last saw Courtney on April 30, the day before she died.

On the morning of Courteney’s death, Pick’s partner, Dale Jacques, left their then-home in Harris Close, Broughton Astley, for work.

They were due later that day to set off for a weekend in Skegness with his parents.

Pick’s account is that some time after 1pm she went outside to hang up her laundry.

She left the baby in the sitting room alive and well with a bib around her neck.

Ms Howes said: “When she returned she found Courtney in her Moses basket, but the bib was noticeably higher up and she was lifeless. In an attempt to revive her she slapped her back and shook her.”

She put the child on the floor and rang her partner, her mother and 999. She was instructed on the kiss-of-life until Dale Jacques’ father, Gary, arrived and took over shortly before paramedics got there.

The trial continues.