Star Hobson: Woman branded ‘pure evil’ jailed for minimum 25 years over murder of partner’s 16-month-old girl

Toddler endured months of assaults and psychological harm before suffering ‘utterly catastrophic’ injuries in her west Yorkshire home

A woman has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years over the murder of her partner’s 16-month-old daughter.

Savannah Brockhill, 28, was found guilty of killing Star Hobson after she suffered “utterly catastrophic” injuries in her home in Keighley, west Yorkshire.

Star’s mother and Brockhill’s former girlfriend, Frankie Smith, 20, was cleared of murder at Bradford Crown Court, but was convicted of causing or allowing the toddler’s death. She will serve eight years in prison.

A jury heard how the toddler endured months of assaults and psychological harm before her death in September 2020.

Brockhill, a bouncer and security guard, was branded “pure evil” by Star’s family, who said she “ascended from the bowels of hell” after she was found guilty of murdering the 16-month-old.

Sentencing Brockhill and Smith on Wednesday, Ms Justice Lambert said Star was “caught up in the crossfire” of their relationship.

The judge said the “fatal punch or kick” to Star caused the toddler to lose half the blood in her body and damaged her internal organs.

She told the pair: “The level of force required to inflict these injuries must have been massive – similar to those forces associated with a road traffic accident.

“Only you both know what triggered that fatal assault. The violent attack which led to Star’s death was not, however, an isolated event.”

Ms Lambert said Star was also found to have suffered two brain injuries, numerous rib fractures, the fracture and refracture of her leg and a skull fracture.

“She was also treated with, at best, callous indifference by you both and, on many occasions, with frank cruelty,” she said.

Star’s great-grandfather, 61-year-old postman David Fawcett, led questions over why social services and police did not act despite five different family members and friends raising concerns with the authorities.

Frankie Smith (left), 20, mother of Star Hobson, has been jailed for eight years for causing or allowing her 16-month-old daughter’s death, while ex-girlfriend Savannah Brockhill has been imprisoned for life with a minimum term of 25 years (West Yorkshire Police/PA)

The first to contact officials, eight months before Star died in September 2020, was Smith’s friend, Hollie Jones, who was the regular babysitter for the toddler.

Ms Jones told the BBC that when social workers rang to say they were going, Smith spent an hour cleaning Star and covering up bruises.

She said: “It’s like ringing up a criminal an hour before and saying ‘I’m coming to get you’. It just doesn’t really make sense.

“I think more things need to be put in place ... because parents that are abusing their children know how to cover it up.”

According to Ms Jones, the social workers said they had “no concern, that she’s safe with her mother ... there’s nothing more that they can do and everything looks fine”.

The sentencing came in the wake of the widespread outcry over the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, who was killed by his father’s girlfriend in June 2020.

Star’s case has been described as “shocking and heartbreaking” by prime minister Boris Johnson, who said: “We must protect children from these barbaric crimes and ensure lessons are learned.”

Star was taken to hospital from the flat where she lived with her mother in Wesley Place, Keighley, on 22 September 2020, but her injuries were “utterly catastrophic” and “unsurvivable”, prosecutors told the two-month trial.

David Fawcett, the great-grandfather of Star, has led questions over why social services and police did not act despite five different people raising concerns with them (PA)

Jurors heard Smith’s family and friends had growing fears about bruising they saw on the little girl in the months before she died.

In each case, Brockhill and Smith managed to convince social workers marks on Star were accidental or that the complaints were made maliciously by people who did not like their relationship.

Prosecutors described how the injuries that caused Star’s death involved extensive damage to her abdominal cavity “caused by a severe and forceful blow or blows, either in the form of punching, stamping or kicking to the abdomen”.

Jurors also heard there were other injuries on her body which meant that “in the course of her short life, Star had suffered a number of significant injuries at different times”.

The jury was shown a series of clips from a CCTV camera which prosecutors said showed Brockhill deliver a total of 21 blows to Star in a car over a period of nearly three hours, some as the toddler sat in a car seat.

The footage came from a camera at a recycling plant in Doncaster where Brockhill was working as a security guard, and was filmed about eight days before Star’s death.

The footage appeared to show Brockhill punching and slapping Star with what the prosecutor described as “considerable force”, and at one point the youngster fell out of the vehicle. Brockhill also grabbed Star by the throat.

The jury also saw another video, described by the prosecutor as “disturbing and bizarre”, showing Star falling off a plastic chair and hitting the floor.

Additional reporting by Press Association