Couple get life for girl's murder

A jury at Bradford Crown Court took less than five hours to convict Sharon Wright and her boyfriend Peter McKenzie-Seaton.

The couple, who had subjected the child to horrific abuse, were both jailed for life and told they would serve a minimum of 23 years.

Paramedics found the girl lying bruised and naked on the living room floor at her home in Almondbury Bank, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, on the night of November 18 last year.

She was taken to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary where she died in the early hours of the morning of multiple injuries.

The judge, Mr Justice Walker, said the pair were "undoubtedly in it together".

"That applies just as much to the biting, burning, and branding as it does to all the other injuries," he said.

He said the girl was "subjected to increasing violence which on any view included deliberate and grotesque cruelty".

The court heard she suffered trauma to her head and abdomen equivalent to a major road traffic accident, with the fatal injuries inflicted two to three days before her death.

She was covered in bruises - old and new - as well as cigarette burns and bite marks. Doctors described the back of her head as a "boggy mass". Her scalp showed signs of infection.