Parents jailed for torturing baby daughter to death
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A couple were jailed yesterday for the manslaughter and neglect of their two-year-old daughter, who was beaten and starved to death at their flat in east London.
Dennis Henry, 39, and Leanne Labonte, 20, blamed each other for the dozens of cigarette burns, bruises and scratches found on Ainlee Walker's body.
The case had echoes of the abuse suffered by eight-year-old Victoria Climbie in London before her death two years ago. Ainlee had been subjected to sustained attacks and neglect since she was two weeks old.
Mr Justice Leveson, sentencing Henry to 12 years in jail and Labonte to 10 years' youth detention, told them there was "overwhelming evidence" of their cruelty and concluded that despite their claims they were "in it together".
During Ainlee's short life, she had become well known to social services, who paid the family a series of home visits and discussed them at several case meetings. Five months before she died, a social worker visiting the flat was so worried about the family that she referred the baby's case to a care team.
Ainlee was found dead in the council flat at Greville Lodge in Plaistow, with bruises, burns and scalds to almost all of her body.
She had starved to death near a kitchen full of food.
Both of her parents had troubled personal lives. Labonte had harboured a mistrust of social workers because, as a child, she had not been removed from the family home despite making allegations of sexual abuse.
She gave birth to her first son at 15 but abandoned him in a bed and breakfast hotel.
She escaped into a private fantasy world, dreaming of becoming a fashion designer and giving herself the alias of the Wuthering Heights character, Catherine Earnshaw.
She became convinced Henry was sexually abusing Ainlee and the baby somehow became a rival for his affections.
In her diary she wished Ainlee had never been born.
She increasingly left the baby's care to Henry, a petty criminal, alcoholic and drug user who suffered from mood swings. He had convictions for criminal damage, assault, handling stolen goods and living off immoral earnings. Shouting and swearing were often heard from the flat. A neighbour, Gwendoline Veale, said: "The programme Neighbours from Hell had nothing on these two. They were disgusting."
In the last few weeks of her life Ainlee was virtually abandoned by her parents.
Labonte was to claim she had not bathed the baby for five months and said she had not heard her cry since Christmas, two weeks before she died.
Yesterday at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Leveson told the couple that Ainlee had "lost the will to live" after enduring abuse from her parents since she was two weeks old. He said: "She was burnt with a cigarette as she was burnt on more than a dozen occasions. Each time she was scalded with hot water and pinched in sensitive parts of her body causing terrible lesions, I have no doubt she would have screamed and screamed till she could scream no more."
He told Henry and Labonte: "The only possible conclusion is that you were in it together. It would be wrong to differentiate between you."
Newham social services has set up an independent inquiry into the case.