No live reporting today however there is a recap.
A mother has admitted she was worried her new boyfriend was a paedophile in the weeks leading up to her daughter’s ‘murder’.
Alexandra Walker searched the internet to try to discover whether Harrison Simpson was a convicted sex offender when she thought he had an unhealthy interest in her two-year-old.
The 26-year-old told Teesside Crown Court how, despite her concerns, she left Isabelle Welsh in her sole care just days after the internet search.
The toddler suffered fatal head injuries after enduring weeks of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Alexandra Walker and Harrison Simpson, a jury heard.
Richard Wright, prosecuting, continued to cross-examine Walker about her evidence about her daughter's wellbeing in the weeks leading up to her death last September.
Walker admitted that she asked Simpson whether he was a paedophile as she had concerns about his ‘unhealthy’ interest in Isabelle after he bathed the toddler without her mother's permission.
Jurors had heard how the toddler was the victim of serious sexual assault in the days leading up to her death and traces of blood were recovered in her nappy when paramedics were called to her home.
The barrister also took the defendant through the catalogue of injuries her daughter suffered, including 21 broken bones.
He said: “In the weeks before she was killed somebody broke nearly all of the vertebrae in her back and her thigh and her knee and her foot.
“Where were the bruises reported in the weeks before she died?”
Walker replied: “There were some bruises on the Thursday but nothing compared to what she looked like on the day she died – it didn’t look like abuse.”
He continued: “She was being abused for weeks, you accept that don’t you?” Walker replied: “Yes.”
He asked: “And you never saw bruises on her body?” She replied: “Yes, but I didn’t think it was abuse.”
Mr Wright challenged Walker about conversations she had with her own mother after she visited the toddler at her Thornaby home.
He said: “Your mum said ‘I hope Isabelle picks up tomorrow – it’s the worst I have ever seen her. It’s heartbreaking to see, I’m seriously worried about her’.
“You could see that as well, couldn’t you? And you did nothing.”
Walker replied: “I tried my best to make Isabelle better, but I thought she had a viral infection.”
Dealing with a head injury inflicted days before Isabelle suffered her fatal bleed on the brain, the barrister asked Walker if she had caused the large bump on her daughter’s head.
She replied: “No, I did not.”
The jury heard how Walker had a cigarette in her kitchen after seeing her daughter gravely ill on the day the fatal head injuries were inflicted.
She accepted it was a frightening moment as she thought Isabelle was going to die.
Earlier in the trial, Dr Daniel Duplessis, a consultant neuropathologist who studied the damage to Isabelle's brain and spinal cord, said there was clear evidence that she suffered traumatic injury due to the multiple bleeds.
Concluding his evidence, he said Isabelle suffered a major impact to the skull, evident from the fracture, but there must have also been very excessive motion of the spine and the head on the spine.
Earlier, jurors had looked at computer-generated images cataloguing the bruising and scratching covering the toddler’s entire body.
Dr Sam Hoggard, a Home Office pathologist, said that the vast majority of the injuries would have been clearly visible to the naked eye during weeks of abuse.
He concluded: “This has resulted in her skull fracture and bleeding within the skull which ultimately resulted in fatal head injuries despite medical staff being able to restart her heart.”
Simpson, 22, of Greenham Close in Thorntree, Middlesbrough, and 26-year-old Walker, of Hartington Close in Thornaby, both deny murder.
The pair also deny four other charges involving Isabelle, including: causing or allowing the death of a child on September 14; two counts of assault by penetration between September 10 and September 14 last year; and cruelty to a person under 16.
The trial continues.
The pain and fear she must have felt during her short life. Indescribable. 
