A seven-year-old girl died after being “quite deliberately” starved by her mother and stepfather for many months, a court was told yesterday.
Khyra Ishaq died of an infection in May 2008 after being kept a virtual prisoner in her home. Medical professionals involved said they had never seen someone in such a state of emaciation.
Five other children who were also in the defendants’ care were “similarly starved” and were lucky to be alive, Birmingham Crown Court was told. Two of the other children, none of whom can be identified, were found to be in a state of acute, severe and dangerous malnutrition when Khyra died.
Details of the condition of the child were revealed by Timothy Raggatt, for the prosecution, as he opened the case against Angela Gordon, Khyra’s mother, and her partner Junaid Abuhamza. They both deny murder.
Ms Gordon, 35, denies five counts of child cruelty alleged to have been committed between December 2007 and May 2008. Abuhamza, 31, has pleaded guilty to five counts of cruelty.
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The seven men and five women on the jury have been informed that the case is a retrial after the original hearing was halted due to illness last summer.
The judge, Mr Justice Roderick Evans, instructed the new jury not to use the internet to find out details of the previous trial.
“One of the fundamental rules in trials in our courts is that juries must reach their verdicts solely on the evidence they hear in court,” the judge said.
Submitting that both defendants had acted together, Mr Raggatt said what they did over a series of months led directly to Khyra’s death.
“What they did was a continuous course of conduct that was cruelty of an extreme kind and had at its heart the deliberate starvation of this child, who was to all intents and purposes, a prisoner in the home in which she was supposed to live and be protected,” he said.
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Jurors were shown pictures from inside the terraced house in Hansworth, Birmingham, including photographs of a well-stocked kitchen and a cane used as part of a “punishment regime”.
Pointing out two large bowls of fruit and tins of sweets in the cupboards, Mr Raggatt said: “It isn’t that this house was short of food, as you can see, there is lots of food in this household.”
But the court heard that the kitchen was kept locked by a bolt which was out of the reach of the children so that they could not help themselves to food.
At mealtimes they were given a single bowl containing carrots, beans, eggs and rice, or unsweetened porridge, to share between them, the court heard.
“If a child ate too much then they would be hit with the cane that I showed you a picture of.”
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The trial continues