Washed in blood, the room where Ellie was savaged

The room appeared to be "awash with blood", a court heard yesterday.

The pit bull terrier which had bitten her 72 times and mauled her to death was in the back garden in a frenzy, barking and baring its teeth.

And the little girl's grandmother Jacqueline Simpson, 45, was crying in a foetal position on the kitchen floor.

Yesterday Liverpool Crown Court heard that Simpson, who is charged with Ellie's manslaughter, had smoked up to ten cannabis joints every day for the past 25 years.

On the night she let the dog into her home, she had also taken sleeping tablets and drunk almost twice the legal drink-drive limit.

According to a police statement, she told them she smoked marijuana "a couple of hours" before the attack.

But she added: "I've been smoking cannabis for 25 years. It does nothing to me."

Her QC, John McDermott, claimed his client was not high because she had built up a tolerance to the drug through years of regular use.

Trainee paramedic Kai Farmer told the court he was one of the first to arrive at Simpson's home after the tragedy in the early hours of New Year's Day.

He told the jury: "I became aware of a female in the house, making a crying noise from the kitchen.

"Jacqui Simpson was lying down, almost in a foetal position on the kitchen floor. She was absolutely covered in blood."

Sergeant Paul Hudson of Merseyside Police said the laminate flooring in the lounge was heavily bloodstained, as were Ellie's pyjama bottoms, which were discovered on the stairs.

There were pawprints in the blood on the floor and the dog's nose and chest were also red with Ellie's blood, he added.

"The living room floor was awash, as though it had been mopped with blood," Sgt Hudson said.

"Jacqui Simpson was not making much sense and I could smell alcohol on her breath.

"I shone my torch at the dog in the garden - it appeared frenzied. It was baring its teeth at me, running back and forth.

"I was worried that if it ran at the window it could easily break the glass and get into us."

He called for armed back-up and around an hour later a police marksman killed the pit bull, named Reuben, with a single shot to the head.

The court heard that blood samples taken from Simpson while she was being treated in hospital for injuries sustained in the attack, showed she had around 140mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

The legal drink drive limit is 80mg per 100ml.

Forensic scientist Brian Johnson told the court cannabis was also found.

It would have made a user feel "euphoric and in a dream-like state."

"This, combined with the alcohol and tamazipan she had taken earlier in the day would have made Simpson intoxicated, affected her co-ordination and made her drowsy", he added.

The court heard that the attack took place at Simpson's home in St Helens, Merseyside, shortly before 4.30am.

Ellie and her younger brother Joshua had been staying at their grandmother's home while their parents, Lindsey Simpson, 25, and Darren Lawrenson, 31, celebrated New Year's Eve with friends.

The couple, who live in Great Sankey, Warrington, had returned to collect their children in the early hours but Ellie asked to stay with her grandmother and they left.

In a statement, Simpson said the attack on her granddaughter seemed to go on for ever and she tried to wrestle the child from the dog's mouth.

"I was wrestling all over with it," she said. "It seemed to last for ages, maybe 20 or 25 minutes. It was just surreal."

PC Peter Tallack, a dog legislation officer, said Rueben, which belonged to Ellie's uncle Kiel Simpson, had been conditioned into a very powerful animal.

"Somebody has taken this dog out and exercised it.

"That muscle formulation is not developed by it simply being left in a garden day in, day out," he said.

The trial continues.