Prosecutors are re-examining the case of a toddler from Cumbria who died after being sexually assaulted.
A judge ruled earlier this year that 13-month-old Poppi Worthington was probably abused by her father, Paul Worthington, shortly before she died. He was arrested nine months after her death in December 2012 but no charges were brought against him.
He has always maintained he never harmed Poppi. Three medical experts have backed him, telling the judge they believed she died of natural causes.
But Mr Justice Peter Jackson found that, on the civil standard of the balance of probabilities, Worthington had abused Poppi in the hours before she died.
The judge concluded: “Shorn to its essentials, the situation is one in which a healthy child with no medical condition or illness was put to bed by her mother one evening and brought downstairs eight hours later by her father in a lifeless state and with troubling injuries.
“Careful assessment of the meticulous pathological and paediatric evidence has clearly established that the injuries were the result of trauma from outside the body.”
A second inquest into Poppi’s death was due to be held in Kendal on 10 October. But on Friday the Cumbrian coroner announced he had been asked to suspend the inquest after being told the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was to carry out a fresh review of the evidence.
A CPS spokesman said: “On 19 September the CPS appeals and review unit received a request under the victims’ right to review scheme in relation to the death of Poppi Worthington. The case material will be considered and the review will be completed as soon as possible.”
As recently as July the CPS said there was insufficient evidence to charge the father with any crime.
A spokesperson said then: “The CPS has looked at the original decision in this case that there was insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction – as we often do in other cases. We have reached the same conclusion.”
Legally, a coroner is obliged to suspend an investigation when somebody may be charged with a homicide offence involving the deceased.
The Cumbrian coroner, David Roberts, said he would suspend the inquest until 30 November, having been advised that the review should be completed in about 56 days.
The first inquest, held in October 2014, took seven minutes to declare Poppi’s death “unexplained”.
