Mother played video games with partner as her toddler lay dying from beatings and poison, court hears

Eve Leatherland was battered so viciously her injuries resembled those caused by a car crash, court hears

Eve Leatherland (Facebook)

A mother played video games with her partner as her toddler lay dying from the beating that one or both of them had given her, a court heard.

Eve Leatherland was battered so viciously that her injuries, including a fractured skull, broken ribs and split liver, were similar to those caused by a car crash, jurors were told.

Her mother, Abigail Leatherland and her boyfriend Tom Curd made her drink codeine – an opiate-based medicine designed for adults only – after the beating at their home in Liskeard, Cornwall, Truro Crown Court heard.

As the 22-month-old lay dying in her cot, the pair sat just feet away playing computer games and messaging friends on Facebook. By the time they called an ambulance, rigor mortis had started to set into her body.

"The pain she must have experienced can only be imagined," said prosecutor Sean Brunton.

Leatherland, 26, and Curd, 31, had met just months before the toddler died and he had moved into her home on 30 September 2017, Mr Brunton told the court.

In the days that followed, he said, Eve was beaten repeatedly. She died less than a week later on 5 October.

"She suffered injuries described by medical experts as being the type of injuries most commonly associated with a road traffic crash,” Mr Brunton said. “The inescapable reality is that one or other or both of these people assaulted that little girl so severely that she was left with life-threatening injuries.

"But rather than taking her to hospital or phoning a doctor or doing anything else to try and save her, ultimately she was given a fatal dose of codeine."

He added it was "inconceivable" that either were unaware of Eve's deteriorating condition in the small house where they lived – and, rather, had chosen to turn a blind eye to her suffering.

Leatherland and Curd, who is originally from Watford, both deny murdering Eve.

They also deny separate charges of manslaughter by gross negligence, and causing or allowing the death of a child.

The trial continues.