A father who shook his 12-week-old daughter to death weeks after an earlier attack left the baby with eight broken ribs and bleeding on the brain has been jailed for nine years.
Tyler Vallance, 21, was described by the sentencing judge as a violent and unpredictable young man who had carried out the fatal attack on Isabella after losing his temper.
Vallance’s partner and the baby’s mother, Jessica Wiggins, 20, was given a nine-month jail sentence suspended for a year after being found guilty of allowing the death of a child.
A serious case review is underway to examine contacts social workers and health professionals had with the couple. On one occasion a health visitor noticed a bruise on the baby’s left cheek.
Vallance, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a mild form of Tourette’s syndrome, admitted manslaughter over the fatal attack and causing grievous bodily harm to Isabella in the earlier assault.
The first attack on Isabella took place at the family home in Redditch, in November 2012. She suffered the sort of injuries to her ribs and brain that would have been expected if she had been in a car crash. Judge Robert Juckes QC said Vallance must have been aware how badly he had hurt her.
The following month Vallance snapped and attacked Isabella again. The judge said: “What undoubtedly, Tyler, you had done in that moment was to twist Isabella’s legs in such a way so violently as to fracture the left femur and right tibia, gripping and shaking her so violently you caused catastrophic brain injury so that bleeding began and led to her very quickly losing consciousness. It was an extremely violent assault, from which she never recovered.”
Juckes said the violent assault was the result of a sudden extreme loss of temper, and whether born of anger or exasperation there was still intent to cause harm.
Turning to Wiggins, the judge accepted she was a good mother who had brought up her own siblings – but he said he was surprised she did not tell doctors or police of her concerns about Vallance.
He said it was only when a friend in whom she had confided threatened to tell the police, that she “hinted” her suspicion that Vallance had carried out the fatal attack.
The prosecution at Worcester crown court described Vallance as a manipulative man who had threatened Wiggins with suicide if she ever left him. He attacked her in public on at least two occasions, once grabbing her throat and hair in front of friends.
Neighbours reported hearing a row in the family home on the morning of the fatal assault, and a one-second phone call to 999 made from Wiggins’ phone was never explained by either parent. It was an hour-and-a-half after that phone call that Wiggins rang for an ambulance, saying her baby had suddenly collapsed.
Abigail Nixon, in mitigation for Vallance, said her client accepted full responsibility for his daughter’s death. She said: “It was a momentary loss of self-control, with tragic consequences.”
Rachel Brand QC, for Wiggins, said she had been “in thrall” to the “emotionally manipulative” Vallance and was only 18 years old at the time of the fatal attack. “To be convicted of this offence is a grave punishment for her indeed,” she said.
Vallance was convicted in August last year of sexual activity with a 14-year-old girl, and of causing a child to engage in sexual activity, for which he was sentenced to six months in custody.
