Couple Gets Jail for Life in UK for Child Murder
'Pakistan Times' Monitoring Desk

LONDON (UK): A young mother and her partner have been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of murdering the woman's four-year-old daughter following a horrific campaign of abuse.

Sharon Wright, 23, and her boyfriend Peter McKenzie-Seaton, 22, were told they would each serve a minimum of 23 years in jail after being convicted of murder following a four-week trial at Bradford Crown Court.

Paramedics found Leticia Aaliyah Wright lying bruised and naked on the living room floor at her Huddersfield home on November 18 last year.

She was taken to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary but she died in the early hours of the morning from multiple injuries.

The court heard how Leticia had suffered injuries equivalent to those sustained in a major road accident, with the fatal injuries inflicted two to three days before her death.

She was covered in bruises - old and new - as well as cigarette burns and bite marks.

Doctors described the back of her head as a "boggy mass", with her scalp showing signs of infection.

Forensics officers found clumps of Leticia's hair in a wheelie bin outside the house.

Meanwhile, traces of her blood were left on her soiled clothes, on a pair of fur-lined handcuffs retrieved from the kitchen, and in "swipe marks" left by her hair on the living room wall.

The court heard that her body was covered from head to toe in more than 100 injuries, which police believe were inflicted in the last four weeks of her life.

It also heard that two neighbours were so concerned about Leticia that they rang social services before her death.

Two social workers from Kirklees Council visited the house on October 13. They met her mother but days later her file was closed.

Setencing the pair Mr Justice Walker, said the pair were "undoubtedly in it together".

Standing outside court, Detective Superintendent Paul Taylor, who led the investigation into Leticia's death, said: "Sharon Wright was a heavy handed, pretty uncaring, pretty unloving mother.

"Peter Seaton was a man of violence and pretty inadequate in a lot of ways. As individual people they were unbalanced. When they got together they were a fatal cocktail. They wanted to be together and Leticia was in the way."

In a statement Leticia's father, Zaheer Hussain and his family said: "She was a beautiful little girl, always happy and smiling, and she had everything to live for.

"Losing Leticia has left a huge gap in our lives. We will always remember her and she will always be in our hearts."

Meanwhile, Paul Johnson, head of safeguarding at Kirklees Council and a member of the Kirklees Safeguarding Children Board, defended the local authority's handling of the case.

He said a council review carried out by an "independent professional" concluded Leticia's death "could not have been foreseen".●