Fifteen-year-old 'Beat Toddler to Death'

A court in Manchester has been told a fifteen-year-old beat a toddler to death. The fifteen-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies murdering two-year-old Demi Leigh Mahon.

Ann Marie McDonald, who is known as Sindy, told jurors at Manchester Crown Court how she came to find her daughter in her bed covered in bruises and unable to breathe properly. She sobs as she explains that she left the toddler alone with the boy for around 90 minutes on July 15 while she left to pick up her child benefit and buy a birthday card.

When she returned, she found him standing outside with another man, and he told her “I picked her up - I might have hurt her - and she fell in the park.”

In response, Ms McDonald rushed into her daughter’s bedroom, finding her on her bed with the bedclothes partially covering her face.

She describes: "Her face was bruised. I tried to pick her up and her head flopped back. She couldn't breathe properly.”

When she asked the boy why he had not rung an ambulance, he simply proclaimed his innocence, saying “I never done nothing, I've not done nothing."

The little girl died two days later as the result of a serious head injury.

Prosecutor Howard Bentham QC said: "When her small body was examined by Dr Naomi Carter, pathologist, Dr Carter found 68 sites of injury on that small body.

"We say every one of those injuries were caused by this young man.”

"They were all over her body but many of them were to her head and face and Dr Carter drew the conclusion that young Demi had probably been punched repeatedly in the face."

In court, Ms McDonald sobbed as she pointed to the defendant and said: "He did that to my daughter", before leaving the court in tears.

Mr Bentham told the jury that the defence will argue that their client suffered an abnormality of mind which impaired his responsibility.