A father was found guilty of killing his 14-year-old daughter after an alleged playfight in their Darlington Kitchen had left her a stab wound of 11 cm to her heart.
Simon Vickers, 50, claimed that he had accidentally picked up a knife together with a tongs during the scuffle, as a result of which his daughter Scarlett threw grapes towards him on July 5 last year.
He had denied both murder and manslaughter, but was convicted after a trial at Tesside Crown Court after the jury deliberated 13 hours and 21 minutes.
Vickers had told the police who arrived on the spot that they had played one moment and the next blood was “gushing” out of her chest.
Simon Vickers, 50, who stuck his 14-year-old daughter in the heart while playing in the kitchen (Durham Constabulary/PA)
Despite his claims that this had been an accident, the persecution argued that the suggestion that he threw the knife at her was “practically impossible” and the wound was too deep to be caused by accident.
Pathologist of the home office Dr. Jennifer Bolton explained the jury that the way the knife went into Scarlett's chest meant that it had to be kept in one hand.
His partner and Scarlett's mother Sarah Hall and other family members looked stunned in the public gallery when the verdict was sent back, while Vickers did not visibly respond in the dock.
Mrs. Hall has been with her partner for 27 years and jury members told that Vickers loved their only child and would never harm her.
Defense lawyer Nicholas Lumley KC said that Scarlett was the beloved of her parents' and that Vickers “did not feel like harming her somehow”.
The knife used that the 14-year-old Scarlett Vickers killed in Darlington (CPS/PA) (PA)
Mr. Lumley said: 'They had cleared together in the kitchen together, in a normal playful way and Simon Vickers suddenly realized that Scarlett was injured.
“Her body must have come into contact with a sharp knife and she died quickly as a result of a single knife wound.
'He, Simon VickerSWill bear the moral responsibility for the death of his daughter for the rest of his life.
Mrs. Hall was present in the kitchen and tried to save the teenager as she killed on the floor, jury members heard.
She called 999 and told the operator that she 'messing around' and that her partner had thrown something at their daughter 'and he did not realize'.
He was found guilty of murder of Tesside Crown Court (Owen Humphreys/PA) (PA)
After he was arrested, Vickers said at the police station: “We just played in the kitchen, I don't know how this happened, one moment I was cooking, then blood flows out of her chest.”
Asked in a police interview if he was responsible for the death of his daughter, Mr. McKone said that Vickers replied: “I have to be.”
Her mother, who had cooked Spaghetti Bolognese with those in the kitchen that evening, was occasionally emotional in the witness box when she gave evidence to support her partner.
She said: “We had a very happy family life, we all loved each other very much, we lived in a small bubble.
“Simon treated Scarlett very well, he was a very practical father, he loved her a lot.”
Prior to the incident, Vickers had drunk wine, watched the Euro football tournament on television and smoked cannabis that day.
During their questions, the police investigated the phones of the family and found no evidence of poor treatment, and jury members were told that the Scarlett school was not worried about her home life and there was no involvement of social services.
Before the jury was sent to consider their statements, the public prosecutor Mark McKone KC said: “If you accept that Mr. Vickers lied about how Scarlett was killed, this must be because he has something important to hide.
“This suggests that he has no truthful report that he regards as innocent for you to even consider.
“In other words, Mr. Vickers has no innocent explanation for the injuries of Scarlett when the knife was held in the hand of Mr. Vickers.”
A post-mortem exam showed that the kitchen knife broke the chest wall between the fifth and sixth ribs, went through her understood and went into the left ventricle of the heart.
Scarlett died very quickly from blood loss, discovered the pathologist.
