'Scarred for life' by abuse of Star Hobson, says babysitter of tragic murdered toddler

16 December 2021, 08:40

Nick Ferrari hears from Star Hobson's babysitter

The babysitter who raised concerns about murdered toddler Star Hobson told LBC how she will be ‘scarred for life’ at the horrific abuse the girl suffered in the months before her death.

Hollie Jones spoke to Nick Ferrari this morning and revealed the shocking injuries she noticed on Star, who was brutally killed aged just 16 months.

Hollie told LBC this morning she was “devastated” at the sentences given to Star’s killer and her mother.

Bouncer and security guard Savannah Brockhill, 28, was given life with a minimum of 25 years yesterday and Star's mother and Brockhill's former partner, Frankie Smith, 20, was given eight years in prison for causing or allowing her death.

“I don’t think Frankie has been given enough time. It’s ridiculous for the part she played and especially as baby Star’s mother," Hollie said.

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“I’m very disappointed about the sentencing.

“When I first met Frankie she was lovely, funny, I really got on with her. She was a good mother. It was really when she met Savannah that it all changed.

“When she met Savannah she was very much distant, not just with friends and family, she was distant with Star, not really bothered as much about her.

Hollie said the last time she saw Star was about a month before she was killed and her condition was “absolutely awful.”

“The way she was will scar me for the rest of my life,” she said.

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“When I first picked her up i brought her in the house and she had bruises all over her neck, her face and her ears.

“I took videos and things. I’ve never seen a depressed baby but that’s what it was. It was absolutely devastating.”

Hollie went on to try and alert authorities but has said her warnings were not taken seriously.

Brockhill, 28, was seen laughing at the start of her sentencing yesterday.

Mrs Justice Lambert, sentencing, said Star lost half the blood in her body after a fatal punch or kick damaged her internal organs.

The judge added: "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."

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

They 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".

Justice Lambert said Star endured 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," the judge told the pair, referencing footage showing Star "clearly desperately in need of sleep", falling off her chair and "dangerously hitting her head on the floor".

Smith and Brockhill filmed it and "both found this funny", the judge said, adding that it seemed Star was "caught up in the crossfire of your relationship", with Smith, "a rather immature and impressionable girl", becoming "obsessed" with Brockhill - at the expense of cherishing a child.

Smith cried uncontrollably when the guilty verdicts were delivered on Tuesday, as the pair stood in the glass-fronted dock.