Gosport baby death: Review finds Roxanne Davis and Samuel Davies 'set out to deceive' police and health professionals
A COUPLE jailed over an infant’s death ‘set out to deceive’ authorities, a serious case review has found.
Roxanne Davis, 30, and her ex-partner Samuel Davies, 24, were living together with baby Stanley in a flat at Garland Court in Forton Road, Gosport in 2017.
They were jailed for 10 years each after being convicted of causing or allowing the death of the three-week-old baby who had 40 broken bones and a skull fracture.
Now a serious case review has identified a safeguarding protocol used by professionals assessing infants’ bruising has been strengthened.
The couple’s trial at Winchester Crown Court heard Stanley had a bruise over his ear thought to be a ‘the first indication that Stanley might be at risk’.
Davis, from Lee Road, Gosport, and Davies, from Mayfield Road, Southampton, denied being responsible. When they were convicted Davis shouted in court branding her ex-partner a ‘murderer’.
The report, which anonymises the couple and the infant, said: ‘They set out to deceive professionals from police and health, deliberately concealing critical facts about their behaviour and treatment of Child N, and they are responsible for his death.’
Stanley died of a fatal skull fracture and brain haemorrhage on March 28, 2017.
The couple were sentenced at Winchester Crown Court last December where judge Jane Miller QC told the pair: ‘You failed to take steps to protect Stanley and are therefore equally culpable.’