***LEGAL DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN WRITTEN BY A STUDENT JOURNALIST AND SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ALLEGED.***
A father has allegedly been jailed for 15 years for murdering his own daughter after the jury rejects his claim he had killed her in a play fight. His daughter, Scarlett Vickers, 14, bled to death in her home in Darlington after being stabbed deep in the chest with a kitchen knife by her father, Simon Vickers, 50, in July. Simon claimed that the fatal injury was a “freak accident” caused while they were “mucking about,” but jurors at Teesside crown court found him guilty of a murder with majority verdict and jailing him for life with a minimum term.
The court heard Simon’s partner and Scarlett’s mother, Sarah Hall, who was also present when she was killed, and, in her belief, he was innocent. Scarlett suffered a 4-inch deep wound in her heart in the kitchen of her family home on Geneva road on the evening of july 5th. Both her father and mother claimed that the injury was self-inflicted accidentally, but a pathologist said it’s impossible for it to be caused by anything other than a knife being held firmly in a hand.
At the sentencing, hearing prosecutor Mark McKone revealed that Simon had a previous conviction in 1993 for wounding with intent after slashing a man’s face with a Stanley knife, for which he got a two year detention and dishonesty offences. McKone stated that Simon’s point of view of what had happened to Scarlett is “inconsistent” with the pathologist’s findings. In mitigation, Nicholas Lumley KC said that the victim’s mother and Simon Vickers’ parents remained in the belief that he didn’t intend to harm Scarlett.
Sarah Hall had previously told jurors that she was standing by her partner of 27 years and was refusing to change her mind, and she stayed, thinking that he would never intentionally harm their daughter. Scarlett’s parents stated that they were just messing around in the kitchen throwing grapes at each other, and the mother had told the police and paramedics that Scarlett got a knife out to cut up some garlic bread and placed it next to some tongs. Simon then told the court that he swiped a pair of tongs towards scarlett which must have caught the knife, which he did not see. Then he said that he didn’t realize what had happened but thought the knife had got caught against a hot plate and scarlett had run on to the 8 inch blade.
Prosecutors said that it was extremely unlikely to happen due to the severe injury to Scarlett, saying that Simon Vickers had to have been holding the knife in his hand for it to cause such damage. The court heard that Vickers had smoked cannabis and drank wine during the evening, with police noting that he was slurring his words when he arrived.
So far, all we know is that Simon Vickers has been found guilty after trial of murder and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 15 years.
