A boyfriend murdered a one-year-old baby in a horrific attack after her mother had been warned that it was not safe to leave the child with him, a jury has been told.
Jamie Chadwick, 22, is accused of murdering Oriana Crilly-Cifrova, the daughter of his girlfriend Chelsea Crilly, 20, in a violent assault at their flat in Bury, Greater Manchester.
Oriana suffered serious wounds from two ‘direct and forceful blows’ consistent with being picked up and swung, hit ‘very heard’ with a blunt object or having someone stamp on her head, the court was told.
The child was taken to the Royal Bolton Hospital on October 15, 2019, before being rushed to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital when doctors realised the extent of her injuries. She died of her wounds the next day.
Chadwick and Crilly both appeared at Manchester Crown Court yesterday. He is charged with murder while she is charged with causing or allowing the death of a child.
They both pleaded not guilty at earlier hearings.
Prosecuting, Peter Wright QC told jurors that Chadwick was responsible for causing the injuries that killed the baby and that at the time of the incident he was under investigation by the police and social services in relation to injuries sustained by a separate child with a different mother.
Jamie Chadwick, 22, is accused of murdering Oriana Crilly-Cifrova, the daughter of his girlfriend Chelsea Crilly, 20 (pictured), in a violent attack at their flat. Oriana suffered serious wounds from two ‘direct and forceful blows’ consistent with being picked up and swung, hit ‘very heard’ with a blunt object or having someone stamp on her head, the court was told
‘We say that the person responsible for inflicting these injuries was the defendant,’ Mr Wright said.
‘The attack on her was particularly violent. In it she sustained multiple skull fractures. It involved a minimum of two direct and forceful blows to her head.’
He added: ‘This was a sustained and violent fatal attack on a quite helpless child.’
Mr Wright told the court that Crilly was aware of the danger that her boyfriend posed to her child but ignored repeated warnings.
He said that the other incident had involved a different child who suffered ‘serious and unexplained injuries’ while Chadwick had been living with the youngster’s mother.
That investigation was eventually dropped but not until December 2019, after Oriana’s death.
Mr Wright said Crilly had been told by several different sources, including social services and a police officer, that it was dangerous to leave her child alone with Chadwick.
These warnings came regularly from the point the pair got together in late 2018 through to when they began living together in 2019 and even until the days before the horrific incident, the prosecutor claimed.
‘It was a risk that she ought to have been only too aware of,’ Mr Wright told the court.
Despite these warnings, the couple, along with baby Oriana, moved into a flat together in Radcliffe, where Chadwick’s sister Ayesha Mohammed was already living.
Throughout this period the prosecution say Crilly had ‘taken active steps to conceal’ what was happening to social services and told them she was not living with Chadwick and that he did not have regularly contact with the child.
The pair had known each other for years and she initially told people they were just ‘friends’ before later denying that he had contact with Oriana.
‘It was symptomatic of a young and impressionable woman who was prepared to risk the wellbeing of her child in favour of a relationship with Jamie Chadwick,’ Mr Wright added.
On October 16, Mrs Mohammed was going out to visit Radcliffe Medical Centre and Crilly decided to go with her, leaving the sleeping baby in the care of her boyfriend, the prosecution claim.
Chadwick was not pleased to be looking after the child and when the pair returned from the short trip to the health centre he told Crilly that he had been on the toilet and that Oriana had crawled towards him and ‘banged her head’ – falling down a short flight of three steps in the flat.
After checking on the baby, Mrs Mohammed decided that something was seriously wrong. The child had gone ‘completely white’ and a decision was made to call an ambulance, Mr Wright told the court.
But as the paramedics arrived, Mr Wright claims Crilly told her boyfriend to go into the bedroom and close the door so that he would not be seen.
Over the next 24 hours, the prosecutor says the young woman lied to authorities and told them it had been her who was on the toilet when the baby had fallen.
Police on the scene of the baby death in Radcliffe, Bury, Greater Manchester, in October 2019
It was not until Mrs Mohammed went to the police with a different version of events that both Crilly and Chadwick were arrested.
Mr Wright said subsequent analysis by medical experts showed that a fall down the relatively short flight of carpeted stairs was ‘inconsistent with the mechanism which actually caused Oriana’s injuries’.
Crilly would later admit she had lied in the hospital, the prosecutor claims.
‘Chelsea admitted she lied to the doctors,’ Mr Wright said. ‘She said she had done so in order to stop Oriana being taken away from her and she never thought that Jamie would hurt her.’
According to the prosecutor, medical opinions on Oriana’s injuries showed she had fractures to both sides of the back of her skull.
The force needed to cause the wounds was similar to the sort of pressure that might be generated from a car crash or a ‘considerable fall’, he said.
Mr Wright told the jury these examinations found that Oriana had injuries to both her ribs and spine – which experts say may have occurred up to two days before her death.
He says the time frame shows the baby was injured twice on separate occasions before the horrific incident which ultimately killed her.
The prosecutor said that the night before October 16, both Crilly and Chadwick had taken a ‘cocktail’ of cannabis, cocaine and vodka, while leaving Mrs Mohammed to look after the child.
‘At the time of her death, they were living together under the same roof,’ Mr Wright told the jury.
‘Crilly was aware of the risk, she chose to ignore it. She was fully aware of the risk from him and chose to ignore it.’
He added that the alleged attack by Chadwick on the baby was no accident and had been intended to cause significant wounds to the 12-month-old.
Mr Wright said: ‘In inflicting those catastrophic injuries on Oriana, Jamie Chadwick had at least intended to cause her really serious harm.’
Chadwick is currently in custody and Crilly is on bail.
The trial continues, with the defendant’s own counsel expected to offer a defence in the coming days.