Baby girl suffered catastrophic brain injury and almost 50 leg fractures in her Staffordshire home - parents paying the price
The parents of a baby girl found with a catastrophic brain injury and almost 50 leg fractures now face jail time for what happened to her inside the Staffordshire home where she should have been safe from harm.
Newborn Darcy-Leigh Jefferson came into the world on February 20 weighing 41bs following a premature birth. But during her short life the little girl was the victim of imaginable abuse that left the community of Burntwood stunned.
After a prolonged police probe her parents Amy Clark, who subsequently moved to neighbouring Lichfield, and Sean Jefferson, of Rushall, Walsall, were charged with murder and manslaughter.
Darcy-Leigh died from significant head injuries in hospital after being found not breathing at her mother's previous address, in Hudson Drive, Burntwood on March 27, 2022 shortly after about 7.19am. Clark had found it difficult trying to feed the unsettled baby and Jefferson took over trying to get her to take her bottle downstairs when he claimed she collapsed.
The jury heard evidence that she suffered 47 rib fractures and fractures to both legs along with bleeding to the back of her eyes. Some of the injuries appeared to be healing suggesting the tot had been physically abused prior to the "catastrophic" brain injury that brought her life to a premature end at just five-weeks-old.
She sadly died two days after the ambulance was called by Jefferson, who appeared in distress, despite the efforts of doctors at Wolverhampton's New Cross and Birmingham Children's hospitals to treat her.
