Natasha Denmark

Natasha Denmark died from shaking on 15 July 1998.

A 23-year-old man was charged with her murder but acquitted. He was also acquitted of manslaughter.

Natasha Denmark had been the daughter of the man's girlfriend and had lived in Rodney Street at the time. He had been living with Natasha Denmark's mother for the previous six months. The mother had two children, Natasha Denmark, and another 4-year-old girl.

The man was accused of killing her by either shaking her, punching her or throwing her against something, because she kept crying.

Natasha Denmark's mother called 999 just before 11.30pm on 15 July 1998, saying that Natasha Denmark had stopped breathing after choking on her own vomit.

The court heard that throughout the call the man could be heard trying to resuscitate Natasha Denmark in the background.

When the ambulance arrived at 11.37pm, Natasha Denmark was dead. Her cause of death was given as being due to inhaling her own vomit after sustaining an injury to her head.

She was then taken to Arrowe Park Hospital where a doctor estimated that she had been dead for about half an hour.

A doctor said that the bruising to her scalp and brain haemorrhaging was consistent with her being hit, or having come into contact with an object either by being thrown or accidentally by falling. He added:

The boyfriend said that Natasha Denmark had been crying in her bedroom and that she suddenly went quiet and that when he went up to check, he found her covered in vomit.

He said that Natasha Denmark had been confined to her room that night after having been naughty earlier in the day.

The man denied having done anything to cause her death.

However, the prosecution submitted:

However, the pathologist, when questioned by the defence, agreed that Natasha Denmark's injuries could have been caused within 24 hours of her death and that he could not say that the bruises and scratches she had had been inflicted at the same time as the head injuries. He also admitted that any loss of consciousness and vomiting need not have happened within minutes of the head injury, accepting that there could have been a gradual onset of symptoms.

The man was tried at Liverpool Crown Court in May 1999 but acquitted.

However, he was convicted of four counts of being concerned in the supply of heroin at Birkenhead and sentenced to four and a half years. The judge stated that the man had played a subordinate, but important role, by driving a drug dealer around Wirral supplying customers who had phoned orders. He was said to have received between £20 and £40 a day for driving the drug dealer around.