Kate Roughley, 37, denies the manslaughter of nine-month-old Genevieve Meehan (Picture: Bruce Adams/Daily Mail)
A nursery deputy manager accused of killing a baby by strapping her face-down to a bean bag and leaving her to suffocate had an ‘unhealthy and troubling hostility’ to the infant, a court heard.
Kate Roughley, 37, denies the manslaughter of nine-month-old Genevieve Meehan, who she found unresponsive and blue on May 9, 2022, at the Tiny Toes Nursery in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport.
Jurors at Manchester Crown Court were told Genevieve was swaddled so tightly she ‘was effectively unable to move’, strapped ‘front down onto the bag by means of a harness’ and then covered ‘practically from head to foot’ by a blanket.
Within five minutes Genevieve can be seen moving her head side-to-side and raising her legs, jurors were told, with prosecutor Peter Wright KC adding: ‘What you will see, we say, is entirely consistent with an increasingly exhausted child desperately thrashing in order to survive.’
He told jurors that strapping a child to a bean bag on their front was an ‘obvious recipe for disaster’ and led to the death of the youngster from a combination of asphyxia and pathophysiological stress.
Mr Wright said Genevieve was left virtually immobilised and face down from 1.35pm to 3.12pm.
The prosecutor went on: ‘Throughout the time of one hour and 37 minutes during which Genevieve had been left unable to move other than minimally, her cries and distress – sometimes accompanied by efforts to move or reposition herself – were simply ignored.
‘Any level of interest in her wellbeing was during this period, we say, sporadic and, at best, fleeting.
‘The risk to Genevieve of asphyxiation and death was both serious and obvious.
‘Yet Kate Roughley ignored it and by the time she checked Genevieve with anything vaguely representing any genuine interest in her condition it was too late.’
Kate Roughley pictured leaving Manchester Crown Court (Picture: Bruce Adams/Daily Mail)
Between 2.10pm and 2.12pm, crying and coughing can be heard for several seconds as Roughley walked over to Genevieve and pulled up the outer blanket covering the child’s head, Mr Wright said.
The crying and struggling continued until 2.24pm when Genevieve’s final leg movements can be seen while Roughley was in the kitchen area, he added.
Mr Wright said: ‘Approximately 10 minutes later at about 2.35pm and then at 2.41pm Kate Roughley checked other children in the room, but not Genevieve.
‘She remained on the beanbag seemingly unchecked and motionless.
‘The sad reality is that by this time she had, in all probability, succumbed to the stresses placed on her body and its ability freely to breathe, and had asphyxiated.’
Mr Wright said CCTV from the baby room on May 5 and 6 revealed that ‘for some inexplicable reason Kate Roughley appeared to have taken against Genevieve’.
On May 5, Genevieve was placed front down and strapped onto a bean bag for nearly two hours, the court heard, before Roughley unwrapped the child from her blanket and restraint in what the Crown said ‘would appear to any casual observer to be overly abrupt and lacking in any degree of tenderness or affection’.
Mr Wright said: ‘The lack of affection we say is not merely visible but palpable.’
Matters did not improve on May 6, said the prosecutor, as the defendant can be heard telling Genevieve to ‘stop your whinging’ and later referred to the youngster as ‘stress head’.
Later when faced with a crying Genevieve in a highchair, Roughley is heard to say ‘Genevieve go home’, the court heard, and then added: ‘Do you have to be so loud and so constant? Change the record.’
Roughley’s ‘displeasure’ continued further in the afternoon when she said: ‘Genevieve go home. Please, I’m even asking nicely. You are driving me bananas.’
Mr Wright said: ‘We say what this behaviour demonstrated … was an unhealthy and troubling indisposition on her part towards Genevieve that was a precursor to what was to take place on May 9.
‘Her hostility to Genevieve was, we say, as illogical as it was disturbing.’
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In a brief summary of the defence case, Sarah Elliott KC told jurors: ‘Genevieve’s death was a terrible and unavoidable accident and not caused by any acts of Kate Roughley that were unlawful.
‘You will hear that she was devastated by the events of that day and left heartbroken by what happened.’
Roughley had worked at the nursery from the age of 18 when she first visited on work experience as part of a college course, said the barrister.
Ms Elliott said: ‘Apart from her college training, everything she learned about looking after young children and babies she learned from those people who worked there and ran the nursery.
‘In those 17 years Kate Roughley had never been in trouble. There were no complaints about her work, in fact quite the opposite.
‘Her case is that on that terrible day she did nothing different to any other day. She looked after the babies in her care as she did every day of her working week.
‘She will say that her care of Genevieve was no different to any other child. She managed looking after a large number of children, often single-handedly, as she often did in a practical, no-nonsense and caring way.’
Roughley, of Heaton Norris, Stockport, denies manslaughter and an alternative count of child cruelty.
The trial, estimated to last four weeks, continues on Thursday.
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