An Indian origin woman has been sentenced to six years imprisonment after she was found guilty of torturing her seven-month-old-daughter by a UK court.
The 33-year-old Shalina Padmanabha had conceived Shagun with her husband after years to IVF treatment. The court heard that Shalina abused her daughter who was just three months old after the baby who was born premature spent first four-and-half months in hospital.
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"You were carrying out acts of assault against this baby or knew, no doubt, almost immediately after an incident occurred that you had done something you shouldn't," said Justice Patricia McGowan at the Old Bailey court said during announcing the sentence in London on Friday. PTI reported.
"I accept entirely that you are devastated by the loss of your child... It is entirely wrong to say you show remorse and even now you do not accept responsibility," she said.
The child had suffered two fractures-one 8 centimeter long and other 11 centimeter long in the skull other than the injuries to the legs. The child suffered fatal head injuries by either the accused Padmanabha hitting her or after her head was bashed against a hard surface, the inner London Court was told during the trial.?
After? injuries were inflicted on the baby by her mother, the baby was rushed to Whipps Cross Hospital in east London, but she couldn¡¯t be saved and she died on August 15, 2017.
The ¡®Daily Mirror¡¯ reported that doctors found a number of older injuries which were healing including the new and healing fractures to the skull, bleeding behind the eyes and cracked ribs.
The baby was tortured consistently with the child being squeezed by the ribs, being shaken apart from her left leg being pulled and twisted. Some of the injuries dated as far back as three months, the Jurors were told which means that the child was subjected to torture for almost half her life.
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The jury, however, cleared Padmanabha of murder but convicted her of manslaughter and of cruelty against a person who was less than 16 years of age.
"That scan revealed she had died as a result of catastrophic injuries to her head. It is the Crown's case that the defendant, her mother, inflicted those injuries," Tracey Ayling, arguing for the UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), told the court.
The court was told by Padmanabha that she didn¡¯t know what caused her daughter to collapse. She also told police officers that her baby was "very strong" and "wriggly".
The child has suffered a number of medical issues and she had to remain in hospital for the first four and half month. She needed to be fed a specialist diet via a tube, had severe eczema and also had a small hole in her head.