Life sentence for child murder couple

LONDON, England -- Two people have been jailed for life for torturing and murdering an eight-year-old girl in one of Britain's worst child cruelty cases.

The half-starved body of Anna Climbie was covered from head to foot with 128 injuries -- inflicted by her great aunt Marie Therese Kouao, 44, and her boyfriend, bus driver Carl Manning, 28.

The Old Bailey in London heard that Anna had been beaten with a bicycle chain, scalded with boiling water and burnt with cigarettes and died a "truly unimaginable death."

Anna died despite police, social workers and hospital staff being alerted to her plight, and Health Secretary Alan Milburn has ordered a statutory inquiry into the death.

Neither defendant showed any emotion as the guilty verdicts to murder were announced. Manning had already admitted manslaughter and cruelty. The jury found Kouao guilty of cruelty.

The jury heard that Anna had been whipped with a belt which covered her body in buckle marks, and attacked with a hammer, a razor blade and a metal coat hangar.

She was forced to "eat like a dog" with her hands bound as she lay in a bath. She was dressed only in a bin bag during freezing winter nights in the unheated bathroom.

Anna had not been fed for two days nor spoken for 24 hours before she died of hypothermia.

Her injuries so shocked pathologist Dr Nathaniel Carey that he told the jury it was "the worst case of child abuse I have ever seen."

Anna's parents, living in the Ivory Coast, knew nothing of their daughter's tortured existence. They believed that when they handed over Anna to her great aunt they had given her the chance of a lifetime.

Social services from three London boroughs and a police child protection officer were aware of Anna.

Two police protection orders were taken out on her in July 1999. But nothing was done and seven months later she was dead.

As well as the Government inquiry, eight London police officers are facing a Police Complaints Authority probe and a social worker has been suspended pending disciplinary procedures.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Metropolitan Police
NSPCC

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