Father 'killed 18-month-old daughter during first night he was left to babysit alone'

A father killed his baby daughter while babysitting her as her devoted mother was on her first night out since the child was born, a court heard today.

Mark Howe is alleged to have either punched, kicked or stamped on the 18-month-old girl.

She was killed by a ‘severe blow to her stomach’ that ruptured part of her gut leaving her slowly dying, a jury was told.

It was not until the next day when her mother returned from a Christmas shopping trip to buy a doll for her daughter that she saw how ill she was.

But in a bid to cover up his attack, Howe stopped his partner from calling an ambulance, the Old Bailey heard.

When she went to get help from her own mother, he drove off with the child and was later discovered by police sitting in the vehicle outside a hospital.

Doctors there battled for an hour to save the baby but she was likely to have been already dead when she arrived.

William Boyce QC, prosecuting, said: ‘It is a tragedy in this case that had she been taken to a doctor, even 12 to 15 hours after he struck the blow, she could have been saved by medical intervention.’

Howe, 36, of Wallington, Surrey, admits causing the injuries from which his daughter died, but denies manslaughter.

He claims that while babysitting he tripped over a coffee table and fell into her stomach with his outstretched arms.

The baby’s ‘tragically misfortunate’ mother was ‘very protective’ of her baby following the loss of a son who was stillborn the year before, the court heard.

She had been reluctant to leave her daughter in Howe’s care on the night of Friday, December 22 2006 for a night out with girlfriends but was persuaded to do so by her own mother, said Mr Boyce.

‘She had never left her alone with anyone throughout the whole 18 months until this night,’ he said.

‘It was the first time she had ever left him in charge of the child at night to babysit. The first time that he did, she received a fatal injury.’

When the mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, returned home at about 1am, Howe was sitting up watching television.

Mr Boyce said: ‘By that time, most likely earlier in the evening, J (the child, who cannot be named) had received a very forceful blow to the stomach at the hands of this defendant.

‘As to why, only he knows. Perhaps in anger, perhaps a sudden loss of temper, perhaps irritability.’

The baby was sick during the night but by the next morning seemed well enough for her mother to go out shopping, again leaving her with Howe.

But when she got home her daughter was ‘unresponsive and floppy’, said Mr Boyce.

The mother was ‘extremely worried’ but Howe tried to persuade her it was not necessary for her to go to hospital.

‘Faced with that extraordinary reaction, L, the mother asked "have you hurt her?" By now J had become blue and was cold to the touch,’ said Mr Boyce.

Howe then stopped her phoning emergency services and drove the child from their home in Sutton but, instead of stopping at any of the hospitals nearby, went and parked near St George’s Hospital in Tooting.

A post-mortem examination showed that the injuries must have been caused by ‘an assault type injury, by a hard punch to the stomach, a kick, or a stamp’, Mr Boyce told the jury.

He said: ‘The severity of the force necessary to inflict such an injury does not allow for an accident.’

Howe initially told police nothing had happened to his daughter while he was babysitting her but later told his partner in a letter that he had ‘lost his balance’ and fell as a result of ‘drinking and smoking’.

The trial was adjourned until tomorrow.