A nursery worker has been jailed for 14 years for manslaughter after she killed a baby girl who the judge said she considered a “nuisance.”
On May 9, 2022, Kate Roughley, 37, strapped 9-month-old Genevieve Meehan face down on a beanbag, restrained her with a harness, and then covered her with a blanket.
The baby was discovered unresponsive and blue 90 minutes later.
Sentencing Roughley at Manchester Crown Court on Wednesday, Mrs. Justice Ellenbogen said, “It is apparent that, at best, you considered Genevieve to have been a nuisance and at times displayed considerable exasperation and antipathy towards her.”
“On the morning of May 9, in obvious exasperation, you berated her for having slept for only 20 minutes, having called her ‘vile.’ I am quite satisfied that you used that word to describe Genevieve herself and not, as you claimed in evidence, her cough,” she added.
Paramedics who arrived at Tiny Toes nursery in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, near Manchester, tried to revive Genevieve but she was pronounced dead in hospital a few hours later.
A post mortem examination found she had died of asphyxiation brought on by a combination of pathophysiological stresses created by a “very unsafe sleeping environment.”
On Monday a jury, who had watched CCTV footage of the incident, found Roughley guilty of manslaughter.
‘I Won’t Get to See Her Grow Up’
Genevieve’s father, barrister John Meehan, gave a victim impact statement in court in which he said: “I have a beautiful daughter and her name is Genevieve. But I won’t get to see her grow up, to develop her loves and her passions.”“I will never comfort her when she is nervous on her first day of school or burst with pride when I see her in her school uniform. I will not hear her say her first word,” he added.
Directing his remarks to Roughley he said: “Your actions have shattered my heart and my soul. Like an incomplete jigsaw, no matter how many times I put myself back together, there is always a piece missing.”
“You are a cold, callous and cruel person … For you, there will be no redemption and no legacy. You will be never be anything other than a child killer,” added Mr. Meehan, who attended court with Genevieve’s mother, Katie Wheeler.
Baby’s Death Was ‘Absolutely Avoidable’
Mrs. Justice Ellenbogen told Roughley, “Her death was absolutely avoidable, the result of your unlawful acts on that day.”“As the harrowing video and audio footage of that day shows, you left Genevieve in that position carrying out only the most cursory and infrequent checks for over 90 minutes, during which time her increasing distress was readily apparent,” she added.
The judge said, “She can be seen desperately moving her lower body and heard crying and coughing, in her ultimately futile struggle to breathe.”
“I am certain that every person in this courtroom who watched the footage was willing for you to pick her up and remove her from the danger in which you had placed her, knowing of course that you would not,” she added.
The court heard Roughley joined Tiny Toes at the age of 18 and gained most of her knowledge of working with babies from her colleagues.
The court heard the ratio of staff to children at the nursery “gradually worsened” and in April and May 2022 the ratio was at one point one nursery worker to 16 children.
Roughley’s lawyer, Sarah Elliott, KC, said “gross understaffing and inadequate support” at the nursery was partially to blame for her actions.
She said Roughley was “uncaring” rather than “callous and cold-hearted,” and said her behaviour was that of someone who was “at the end of her tether.”
A separate health and safety investigation is continuing into Tiny Toes, which has since closed.
Rebecca Gregory, 25, who also worked at the Tiny Toes nursery, was recently charged with four counts of child neglect unrelated to Genevieve.
