A British woman has been convicted of murdering her partner’s 16-month-old daughter by repeatedly punching and stomping her, causing “catastrophic” injuries to the baby. Savannah Brockhill,28, inflicted weeks of physical abuse on little Star Hobson before the child went into cardiac arrest and sadly passed away.
West Yorkshire Police
- Brockhill’s partner, Star’s mother Frankie Smith, 20, was also convicted. While not found guilty of murder, she was convicted of causing or allowing her death and will also face many years behind bars for her crime.
- Star experienced many injuries before she passed away. During a seven-week trial, the court heard how Star had a number of injuries over a period of weeks, including a shin fracture caused by “forceful twisting,” BBC News reports. She was also said to have been “choke slammed” and repeatedly punched by Brockhill.
- Brockhill’s cruelty was extensive and horrific. A post-mortem discovered that Star also suffered a fractured skull, split to the liver, a tear in the fatty attachments of her bowel, and bruising to the lower part of the lungs and pancreas. As Prosecutor Alistair MacDonald QC said: “The effect of such injuries was immediate and heavy bleeding into the abdominal cavity, which caused a catastrophic drop in blood pressure and unconsciousness and death within seconds to minutes. The assault or assaults that killed Star clearly involved the use of severe force and were obviously intentional.”
- Much of the abuse was even caught on camera. Jurors at the trial were shown video footage of Brockhill punching Star 21 times in a car over three hours as Star sat in her car seat. The footage was captured at a recycling plant where Brockhill worked as a security guard and was said to have been taken eight days before she died.
- Social services missed out on five separate opportunities to save her. Even Star’s great-grandparents, Neil Fawcett and Anita Smith, reported their concern to local authorities after they noticed Star had many bruises on her body. However, social services failed to step in and Smith blocked them on social media and restricted their access to Star.
- Brockhill denied causing any of Star’s injuries. At first she claimed a 2-year-old child had assaulted the little girl before then insisting it must have been Smith, the girls’ mother. Smith told authorities she wasn’t in the room when the injuries happened but that she only realized Brockhill had murdered the girl after reflecting upon the situation while behind bars.
Both women will be sentenced on December 15.
Facebook/West Yorkshire Police
West Yorkshire Police
