Maya Chappell injuries not likely to be accidental, court hears

Maya Chappell died in hospital two days after collapsing at her Shotton Colliery home

Injuries suffered by a two-year-old girl were consistent with forceful shaking and not accidental, a murder trial has heard.

Maya Chappell died in hospital two days after collapsing at her home in Shotton Colliery, County Durham, in September 2022.

Her mother's boyfriend Michael Daymond, 27, denies murder and said she hit her head when she fell from from a bed.

Pathologists told Teesside Crown Court her injuries were probably "abusive".

The court has heard Mr Daymond was in sole care of Maya on 28 September at their new home when he called 999 to say she was gasping for breath.

She died two days later at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary.

Dana Carr denies allowing the death of a child and child cruelty

Paediatric pathologist Dr Jo McPartland said she found numerous bleeds in Maya's eyes that were caused in the 48 hours or so before her death.

She said they were caused by an "excessive" forward and backward motion of the head and neck, possibly in combination with an impact against a hard surface.

She said the "constellation" of injuries had only been seen in accidental cases that involved high-speed car crashes, a multi-storey level fall or a head-crushing incident.

Dr McPartland said no "natural causes" such as an underlying illness or blood clotting disorder were found in Maya.

She said a "low-level fall" such as that claimed by Mr Daymond would "not be expected to cause" her injuries and the findings in Maya of both herself and other pathologists "would indicate a non-accidental" or "abusive" source.

'Normal tumbles'

Consultant neuropathologist Daniel Du Plessis said Maya died due to "very severe" and "unsurvivable" brain damage caused by a "devastating" lack of oxygen and blood supply.

He said she had a widespread bleed on the brain and in a child of her age it was "almost invariably due to a traumatic head injury" where the brain was "violently rocked forward and backward".

Dr Du Plessis said the "attributes" of Maya's brain injury pointed "strongly to a non-accidental injury event" and other bleeding in her spine "very strongly" supported the thesis that something "sinister" had happened.

He said the degree of force needed to cause her injuries was "well beyond the normal tumbles" a toddler might accidentally have, with a low-level fall or tripping while running "not sufficient" to cause them.

Dr Du Plessis said the injuries would "almost certainly" have been inflicted seconds before Maya's collapse, adding in most cases of its type children become unconscious "just about straight away".

Even in the "much rarer" examples of a child not immediately becoming unresponsive, they would obviously be "critically ill" by becoming floppy and cold, changing colour and their breathing would become "irregular and halting", Dr Du Plessis said.

Relatives raised concerns

The court has heard Maya's mother, 24-year-old Dana Carr, had been in a relationship with Mr Daymond for nine weeks before the girl's death.

She denies failing to protect her daughter and said she had no idea her daughter was allegedly being harmed.

A number of relatives have told jurors they saw bruises on Maya in the weeks before her death and raised fears that Mr Daymond was hurting her.

In his interview with police, Mr Daymond said she had been unwell during the day and been sick.

In a transcript read to jurors, he said he was playing on a games console when he heard a loud bang from her bedroom shortly after 15:00 BST.

Mr Daymond said he ran in and picked her up but her head was "flimsy" and "floppy" like "there was nowt there".

He said he started "panicking" and phoned Ms Carr to tell her to "get home now", before calling emergency services who talked him through performing CPR.

'Didn't even cry'

He told police Maya had the "usual kid" bruises from falling over, adding she "trips over her own feet", as well as bruises on her face, shoulder and stomach.

Mr Daymond said she also had "four finger print" bruises on her legs which she caused when she regularly pinched herself, which he said she did for "comfort" or "attention".

He said she would also "toss" herself down the stairs and had been seen headbutting a radiator.

Mr Daymond denied causing any of the injuries except some on her belly, which may have been caused when he and Ms Carr were throwing Maya between them in a game during which Maya was laughing.

He said the day before she collapsed, Maya fell out of her mother's bed and hit her head on the handle of a bedside draw leaving a bruise but she "didn't even cry".

Mr Daymond also denies child cruelty between 23 August and 29 September relating to multiple assaults on Maya.

Ms Carr also denies child cruelty, based on the prosecution's assertion that she "covered up" for Mr Daymond and hid the abuse.

The trial continues.