A man has been jailed for a minimum of 18 years for the murder of a one-year-old girl who was left in his care.
At the time of the death, Jamie Chadwick, 22, was being investigated by police on suspicion of causing serious injuries to another child, a six-month-old boy, more than a year earlier and had been told not to have unsupervised contact with children.
Sentencing him at Manchester Crown Court to a life term, Mrs Justice Yip said 'as a matter of common sense' his murder conviction 'strengthens the suspicions' he was also responsible for inflicting the injuries on the younger child, referred to as Baby T, in July 2018.
In early 2019, Chadwick began a new relationship with Chelsea Crilly, mother of Orianna Crilly-Cifrova, and they later moved in together to live with the defendant's sister at her flat in Radcliffe, Greater Manchester.
Miss Crilly, who was cleared on Monday of allowing the death of a child, accepted that she lied to social workers, a healthcare visitor, police officers and doctors about seeing Chadwick with Orianna.
Chadwick - who is not Orianna's father - also played his part in the prolonged deception by telling his probation officer that he had no contact with the youngster, and on one occasion hid under a bed when social workers visited Miss Crilly at the address in Cross Lane.
On October 16 last year, Chadwick was left alone with Orianna for about a hour before Miss Crilly and the defendant's sister returned to the address and discovered the toddler 'floppy' and 'white', strapped in her pram in the back bedroom.
Emergency services were called but Orianna died in hospital the following day.
The trial heard that she suffered 'awful injuries', with her skull shattered from two 'really heavy' blows to the back of her head,
During the trial, Chadwick changed his defence that Orianna had fallen down stairs while he was on the toilet, and told the jury that Miss Crilly had kicked her daughter, sending her 'flying' into a television stand, and claimed she then made him take the blame.
Mrs Justice Yip told him: 'The jury saw through your blatant lies. This was a cowardly final effort by you to escape the consequences of what you had done. It can only have served to increase her distress.'
She said Chadwick's mild learning disability could offer no explanation for the 'violent murder of a blameless one-year-old child'.
. They were living with the squirter's sister, this should have been noticed. But no, the shitheads all failed.
