A woman has been convicted for manslaughter after beating her 7 months old baby to death.
Shalina Padmanabha, 33, abused her baby daughter for the last three months of her life after she spent the first four months in hospital after spending years trying to conceive through IVF faces jail after being convicted of manslaughter.
Inner London Crown Court heard how Padmanabha and her husband had spent years trying to conceive before their daughter was born in February 2017.
She was born prematurely with a hole in her head and required multiple operations before she was allowed the home to Buckhurst Hill, Essex.
It was there she suffered ‘catastrophic’ head injuries, either inflicted by her mother hitting her or bashing her head against a hard surface, the court was told.
She wept in the dock as she was today cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter and cruelty against someone under the age of 16.
Jurors were told the baby girl was rushed to Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, east London, but later died from her injuries in the early hours of 15 August 2017.
When she was arrested on 24 August, she told police officers she just had a ‘very strong’ and ‘wriggly’ baby.
And during the trial, Padmanabha claimed she did not know what caused her daughter to collapse.
A post-mortem examination found a number of older healing injuries including new and healing fractures to the skull, cracked ribs and bleeding behind the eyes.
The injuries were consistent with the baby being shaken, squeezed by the ribs and having her left leg pulled and twisted.
Jurors were told some of the injuries dated as far back as three months, showing the seven-month-old had been abused for almost half her life.
‘Because it was a sudden death her body was subjected to a post-mortem skeleton scan,’ said prosecutor Tracy Ayling, QC.
‘That scan revealed she had died as a result of catastrophic injuries to her head.
‘It is the Crown’s case that the defendant, her mother, inflicted those injuries.’
The trial was told the victim suffered from a number of medical issues, which meant she had to stay in the hospital for the first four months of her life.
After she was discharged, she needed to be fed a specialist diet through a tube, had severe eczema and a small hole in her head.
She also required several surgeries for her health issues, and a number of health support staff were tasked with monitoring her progress.
Lady Justice McGowan ordered reports and remanded Padmanabha in custody ahead of sentence on 19 July.
After today’s verdict, detective superintendent Stephen Jennings, from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: ‘The death of a child is always tragic but when it comes as the result of the actions of another person it is heart-breaking particularly from a parent whose main responsibility is to take care of their child.
‘Shalina Padmanabha subjected this baby to violence which ultimately leading to her death. That is something she will have to live with for the rest of her life.’
