Toddler suffered 21 broken bones before being 'murdered' by mum and boyfriend, jury told

A two-year-old toddler who died had suffered a chilling catalogue of 21 broken bones in her short life, and had been sexually assaulted, a jury heard. Isabelle Welsh collapsed at her home after suffering a final “massive head injury” at the hands of her mother and her new boyfriend, it is alleged. Alexandra Walker, 25, and her lover Harrison Simpson, 22, deny murder, allowing the death of a child, sexual assault and child cruelty.

Teesside Crown Court heard how the pair became a couple last summer. Simpson was a regular visitor to Walker’s home where he spent “a lot of time” with the little girl, jurors were told. But on September 13, Walker made a 999 call about her daughter, who had collapsed. Paramedics found Isabelle at the foot of the stairs, without a pulse, at the home in Thornaby, near Middlesbrough, the court heard.

Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, said Isabelle was covered in bruises, particularly to her head, neck, abdomen, back and private parts, her nappy contained blood and she had vomit on her face.

She was rushed to hospital by ambulance, but despite the efforts of specialist doctors, she died in the early hours of September 14.

The prosecution said Isabelle had been violently shaken, her spine over-extended, and her head hit against a hard surface such as a wall or the floor.

Mr Wright said: “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.”

It is alleged that both Walker and Simpson had “ample opportunity” to harm the toddler and in such a small, two-bedroom house “each must have been aware of the abuse”.

Mr Wright said Walker, who claimed to have been studying forensics, took her daughter to the GP and then hospital 11 days before she died, when Isabelle’s leg was found to be fractured, yet despite the concerns of some medics, the child was discharged back into her mother’s care.

The prosecution said this leg fracture was “no more of an accident than the fatal head injury”.

A post-mortem examination found that Isabelle had suffered fractures to 21 bones, and she was “covered in bruising, the result of forceful gripping”, Mr Wright added.

He said Walker, by her own account, had waited two weeks before reporting the fractured leg.

The prosecutor added: “When Isabelle was gravely unwell in the week before she died, no medical assistance was sought, and even on the day she died, after her heart had stopped and she appeared to all intents and purposes to be dead, Alexandra Walker only called an ambulance when her stepfather told her to, long after she must have known her daughter was critically ill."

The jury was told the couple had an “unhealthy” relationship in which drink and drugs were a feature, and this led to a decline in Isabelle’s care before it built to her being “subjected to regular violence at home by these defendants”.

Mr Wright said, “unusually”, there was CCTV captured from two cameras installed at Walker’s home.

The trial continues.