🚨💔 99 DAYS FROM LAUGHTER TO TRAGEDY: ISABELLE’S FINAL VIDEO LEFT THE COURTROOM IN TEARS—AND WHAT HER OWN MOTHER WAS FOUND GUILTY OF HAS SHOCKED THE NATION.
Video footage shows North East killer mum smoking cigarette as her daughter lay dying
A video of Isabelle Welsh smiling and jumping around a sofa has also been shared as her killers were today sentenced for her horrific murder
Walker seen in the kitchen window reflection smoking a cigarette as her toddler lay dying
Footage of a toddler smiling and playing has been released along with disturbing images of her own mother smoking as she lay dying. Isabelle Welsh, aged two, endured horrific physical and sexual abuse prior to her death.
Doctors found she had suffered 21 broken bones and a catastrophic head injury before she collapsed at home. Her vile killers – her own mother Alexandra Walker and Walker’s paedophile boyfriend Harrison Simpson – were both found guilty of murder this week following trial at Teesside Crown Court. Today they were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Jurors had heard harrowing evidence of how little Isabelle became “floppy and unresponsive” on September 13 last year, whilst with her mother at her home in Thornaby. Simpson had looked after Isabelle that morning, and he later went out in the afternoon, Teesside Live reports.
In a disturbing video released by Cleveland Police, footage shows Walker in the reflection of her kitchen window smoking a cigarette as her toddler lay dying. Walker had Googled “why would my toddler be bleeding” rather than alert the emergency services.
She only called 999 when told to do so by her stepdad when she called him round to her Hartington Close home. Nothing could be done to save Isabelle, and the little girl tragically died a few hours later.
While speaking to a nurse, during her police interview and throughout the trial, Walker blamed her new boyfriend for all the little girl’s injuries.
In her sentencing remarks, the judge Ms Justice Norton said the murder was the final act in a series of assaults which the pair tried to cover up. Regarding Walker delaying the 999 call, she said: “I have no doubt whatsoever that your lack of urgency or concern for your child was because you wrongly believed that Isabelle was already dead, and you were working out what to do to save your own skin.”
Killers Alexandra Walker and Harrison SImpson (Image: Cleveland Police)
On Tuesday, a jury found Walker, 26, and Harrison, 22, guilty of murder and child cruelty. Simpson, of Greenham Close in Thorntree, was also found guilty of sexual assault on the toddler.
The girl was sexually assaulted around the time the fatal blow was inflicted, the judge said. The defendants inflicted the injuries and then failed to get Isabelle medical help, she said, “even though it was obvious that she needed it”.
There were no witnesses to the abuse and CCTV cameras set up in the house did not capture it and the judge said there was a “wall of silence” around what happened. Simpson did not answer police questions or give evidence at the trial and Walker “lied from start to finish”, the judge said.
She said Walker had claimed to be more highly educated than she was, pretending she had breast cancer, telling people she did not take drugs when she actually sold them. The mother claimed she did not drink much, but on the night Isabelle was murdered she downed 10 cans of Stella Artois.
She was not just a liar but “a fantasist and an attention-seeker” who self-harmed then claimed to have been attacked, the judge said. She said: “Right to the very end, your interest was not in Isabelle, but in yourself.”
The judge said she had considered a whole life tariff for Simpson but could not be sure that the murder was sexually motivated, although it happened around the time of the fatal blow. She could not be sure because the jury cleared Walker of sexual assault, but convicted her of murder.
The judge said the injuries the two-year-old suffered were “sadistic” and that she was “obviously in pain and distressed, and in the final week of her life, gravely ill”.
Simpson was caged for life with a minimum terms of 28 years. Walker, of Hartington Close, was also jailed for life, with a minimum term of 22 years.
In another video released today by police, Isabelle is seen smiling as she plays on a sofa. Jurors were told that Isabelle had been a happy, healthy child until her mother started dating Simpson last summer.
The video was recorded before the killers got together on Facebook Dating. Isabelle’s family said in a statement the little girl was “so loved”.
They said: “Isabelle should have had her whole life ahead of her, but she was taken from us in the most heartbreaking way. She was so loved and our lives will never be the same without her.
“Whilst today’s result cannot undo the pain caused or bring Isabelle back, it does mean justice has been served. We will remember Isabelle forever and ask for privacy as we continue to grieve as a family.”
Floral tributes left outside the property on Hartington Close, Thornaby, following the death of the little girl (Image: Terry Blackburn)
Speaking outside court after sentencing, senior investigating officer, Detective Chief Inspector Steve Chatterton, said: “This investigation exposed the heartbreaking and sustained abuse of a vulnerable little girl who should have been protected, loved and cared for.
“Instead, Isabelle suffered repeated and serious injuries over a prolonged period before ultimately losing her life as a result of a devastating attack. Our thoughts remain first and foremost with Isabelle.
“She was a defenceless child whose life was cruelly taken from her, and the circumstances of her death have deeply affected everyone involved in this investigation. Today, we remember Isabelle.
“She deserved a future filled with love, happiness and safety. She was denied that opportunity, and she must never be forgotten.”