A UK court has heard harrowing allegations surrounding the death of a little girl, with prosecutors claiming the toddler endured a prolonged “campaign of violence” at the hands of her mother and her new boyfriend before suffering fatal injuries.
The case is before Teeside Crown Court, where two-year-old Isabelle Welsh’s mother, Alexander Walker, 25, and her boyfriend, Harrison Simpson, 22, denied charges including murder, sexual assault, causing or allowing the death of a child and child cruelty offences, BBC reports.
Jurors were told Isabelle collapsed at the foot of the stairs insider a home in Thornbury, on September 13, 2025, after suffering a “massive head injury”. She later succumbed to her injuries and died in hospital the following day.
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Prosecutor Richard Wright KC told the court of the sequence of events before Isabelle’s death, saying Ms Walker and Mr Simpson were up late drinking and smoking marijuana at home the day before she died.
It is alleged the following morning Ms Walker stayed in bed while Mr Simpson was responsible for caring for the toddler alone.
Mr Simpson later placed Isabelle down for a nap before leaving the two-bedroom home around 3pm.
Within minutes of his departure, Ms Walker made internet searches made from her phone include “why would my toddler be bleeding” and “what should I do if my child has blood in their stool”
Jurors were also told CCTV footage from the home captured Ms Walker saying, “You’re scaring me” before carrying out a further Google search on her phone, The Sun reports..
Around the same time, Ms Walker went into the kitchen to smoke a cigarette.
“It is absolutely obvious that by this time Isabelle is gravely ill. She is quite simply dying,” Mr Wright told the court.
“And yet, despite the searches on Google, Alexandra Walker does nothing,” Mr Wright said.
Jurors were told Ms Walker allegedly delayed calling emergency services despite signs her daughter was critically ill and only made a call to paramedics after her stepfather arrived at the home and urged her to get help.
“Even on the day she died, after her heart had stopped and she appeared to all intents and purposes to be dead, Alexandra Walker only called an ambulance when her stepfather told her to,” Mr Wright told the court.
“In due course you may want to consider why there was very significant delay in summoning the emergency services.
“One explanation of course is that Alexandra Walker knew that this time she would not be able to bluff and bluster her way out of the very difficult questions that she knew she would be asked at hospital.
“For weeks this child had been violently assaulted and her death, by that terrible head injury, was simply the end point in that campaign of violence to which she had been subjected.”
The shocking extend of Isabelle’s injuries were later revealed in a post mortem examination that shows she suffered 21 broken bones in the weeks leading up to her death.
Prosecutors allege the toddler was also subjected to sexual abuse and “covered in bruising, the result of forceful gripping”, according to Sky News.
