Deeply distressing video has emerged showing a cheerful toddler playing at home just weeks before she was allegedly sexually assaulted and killed by her mother and the woman’s new boyfriend.
Two-year-old Isabelle Welsh sustained 21 fractures in the weeks leading up to her death from a severe head injury in September last year, the court has heard.
Prosecutors allege her mother, Alexandra Walker, 25, and Walker’s boyfriend of only a few months, Harrison Simpson, 22, carried out a “campaign of violence” that ended with Isabelle suffering fatal injuries and 97 soft tissue wounds.
Walker and Simpson, whom she had met online just months earlier, deny murder, assault by penetration, allowing the death of a child and child cruelty.
Jurors at Teesside Crown Court were shown footage of Isabelle playing in the family home before the alleged period of cruelty began.
One video showed the little girl racing across the sofa at her mother’s home in Thornaby, Teesside, happily jumping from one side to the other.
In another clip, she could be seen running through the small back garden while holding a red witch’s hat on her head, laughing as it slipped and fell to the ground.
Prosecutors claim that within days of that second video being recorded, Isabelle’s life changed as she was subjected to sustained abuse, injuries and neglect by Simpson and Walker.
Two-year-old Isabelle Welsh died at her home in Thornaby, Teesside, on September 14 last year
A jury has been shown video footage of little Aria playing in the weeks before her death
Heartbreaking video shows Aria running happily in her garden while wearing a red witch’s hat
Aria is seen clutching the hat after it fell off her head, making her laugh
ALSO READ: Leaked White House Blacklist Report: Insider Reveals Secret Target List
Teesside Crown Court has heard that in one incident Isabelle suffered a broken leg after being left alone with Simpson, but medical help was not sought for a fortnight while the toddler’s pain worsened day after day.
She died in the early hours of September 14th last year after being found by paramedics lying motionless at the foot of the stairs.
She had suffered a catastrophic head injury which was consistent with being hit against a hard and unyielding surface such as a wall or the floor. The impact was so severe it stopped her heart.
The trial has heard Isabelle had suffered multiple broken bones and internal tears from violent sexual assaults, she had soft tissue injuries from fingertips where she had been tightly held and shaken and there was evidence from a pathologist to say she appeared to have been swung by a limb.
The court has heard that even as Isabelle lay dying, her mother waited just short of an hour before dialling 999.
She Googled ‘Why would my toddler be bleeding?’ as she walked around her kitchen smoking a cigarette, it is alleged.
It was only when her stepfather arrived at her home and insisted emergency services were called that she rang for help.
But Isabelle could not be saved despite the intervention of a team of doctors at North Tees Hospital.
Isabelle’s mother, Alexandra Walker, is on trial at Teesside Crown Court accused of her daughter’s murder
Harrison Simpson, 22, is also accused of Isabelle’s murder. He had known her mother for just a few months at the time of her death, jurors have been told
Jurors were played an interview that maternal grandmother Claire Walker gave to detectives following Isabelle’s death.
She told police the toddler was chatty and intelligent and had generally been in good health up to her sustaining a broken leg for which she received hospital treatment. Jurors have been told this was 11 days before she sustained a fatal head injury.
After the mother and toddler were allowed home from hospital, Isabelle’s grandmother visited them and spotted a bruise on her back. She told detectives she said ‘what the hell’ when she saw it.
Ms Walker told police her daughter explained that Isabelle had bumped her head on the settee. She told police she thought Isabelle had picked up a virus from hospital which explained why she looked unwell.
The grandmother also gave evidence in court from behind a screen and told Mark McKone KC, representing her daughter, that she had never met Simpson, who had been dating Walker for just a few months. Ms Walker told the court her daughter explained that Simpson ‘had anxiety and didn’t want to meet with me’.
The trial, expected to last up to six weeks, continues.
