5:01am Tuesday 27th November 2007
By Neil Hunter
A YOUNG father who shook his baby daughter to death weeks after telling his partner he hated their child was yesterday jailed for eight years.
Christopher Jewell, 25, snapped while he was caring for four-month-old Demi at their County Durham home in January.
And a court heard that the roofer had shouted "I f***ing hate her so much", when he could not stop her crying when she was a month old.
Three months later, Demi suffered massive head injuries and eight broken ribs after being left with Jewell while her mother had a night out with a friend.
The baby was taken to hospital from the family home in Newton Aycliffe, but was pronounced brain dead three days later, the court was told.
Jewell was charged with murdering the infant, but yesterday pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds he did not mean to cause Demi serious harm.
Teesside Crown Court was told that Jewell was suffering from emotional and financial problems in the weeks leading up to the tragedy.
Paul Sloan, prosecuting, said Jewell had mounting debts and was "on intimate terms" with another woman as his relationship became strained.
He was also travelling two-and-a-half hours to Blackpool every day to work as a roofer, and had done so on the day he attacked Demi.
The court heard he returned to the family home in Ritson Road on the Friday evening and his partner, Linzi Heslop, made a last-minute decision to go out.
Mr Sloan said Jewell sent Miss Heslop a text message calling her a "sly cow" for going out, and told her not to be home late.
His partner's nine-year-old daughter, and their five-year-old boy and three-year-old daughter were asleep upstairs.
But within 20 minutes of Miss Heslop leaving their home with her friend, Jewell had caused the baby fatal injuries.
Demi was in a bouncy chair, and had been upset that day because she had recently had a third course of injections.
Mr Sloan said the couple's seven-year relationship was failing, while Jewell's mounting debts were causing strain.
The father snapped and shook the baby violently, causing a brain injury from which she died three days later at Newcastle General Hospital.
He also broke eight of her ribs, by pushing hard against them, and may have caused bruising that was found on her leg and back.
The court heard Jewell did not admit what he had done, even as his daughter lay fatally injured in hospital.
He told medics she had just gone limp when he picked her up after she started crying.
He finally changed his plea and admitted his part in killing his daughter months after he was charged.
Judge Peter Fox, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, said: "You had the sole, immediate responsibility for that little girl, for her care and for her welfare.
"You lost your temper with her, and you lost it to an ungovernable extent, and so you inflicted fatal injury upon her."
Jamie Hill, mitigating, told the judge: "The defendant is well aware that a sentence of some years must follow this plea of guilty and he has prepared himself for that.
"Equally, he appreciates that the serving of that necessary sentence is in many ways just the beginning of his punishment.
"He must live with the responsibilities, the shame and the guilt of what he did."
Mr Hill added: "It is easy to say in retrospect that he was too young and ill-equipped to deal with the pressures of family life, with such a large family. Of course, others manage. He didn't.
"He did take on the responsibilities of fatherhood when he was 17 and formed his relationship with Linzi Heslop, she then being 21 and already having a child.
"By and large, he did his best for more than six years.
"There is not any real suggestion of mistreatment or cruelty on previous occasions.
"He is not fundamentally a bad person."
Judge Fox told Jewell: "The taking of the life of another is not to be taken lightly, particularly the life of a defenceless infant child.
"You were subject yourself to a number of extenuating circumstances, but a number of those were of your own making.
"You were, of course, too young and insufficiently mature to bear the responsibility which you assumed.
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