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  "path": "/2026/06/24/girl-2-abused-murdered-mum-boyfriend-campaign-violence-28902693/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-24T07:24:48.000Z",
  "site": "https://metro.co.uk",
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  "textContent": "Isabelle Rose Welsh was found lying lifeless at the foot of the stairs at the home she shared with mum Alexandra Walker, 25, in Thornaby, Teesside, last September (Picture: Cleveland Police)\n\n**A two-year-old girl suffered 21 broken bones while being subjected to a ‘campaign of violence’ at the hands of her mum and her mother’s new boyfriend that ended with her murder, a court heard.**\n\nIsabelle Rose Welsh was found lying lifeless at the foot of the stairs at the home she shared with mum Alexandra Walker, 25, in Thornaby, Teesside, last September.\n\nThe toddler’s body was ‘covered in bruises’ – especially her head, neck, abdomen, back, as well as her genitals and bottom, jurors at Teesside Crown Court were told.\n\nWalker and her boyfriend, Harrison Simpson, 21, are on trial charged with Isabelle’s murder, causing or allowing the death of a child, assault by penetration of a child under 13 and child cruelty.\n\nRichard Wright KC, prosecuting, said: ‘Isabelle’s death was not the result of some form of naturally occurring illness.\n\n##  Sign up for all of the latest stories\n\nStart your day informed with Metro's **News Updates** newsletter or get **Breaking News** alerts the moment it happens.\n\n‘She died because shortly before her terminal collapse somebody had inflicted a massive head injury upon her.\n\n‘Her skull had been fractured, her brain had been injured, and her heart had stopped as a result of that assault upon her.’\n\nThe couple had got together barely three months earlier and Simpson soon became a regular visitor to Walker’s home, spending ‘a lot of time’ with the little girl, the court heard.\n\nMr Wright said the couple had an ‘unhealthy’ relationship in which drink and drugs were a feature, and it led to the decline in Isabelle’s care before it built to her being ‘subjected to regular violence at home by these defendants’.\n\nJurors heard Isabelle suffered a broken leg towards the end of August but it was days before her mum finally sought any medical treatment.\n\nWalker took Isabelle to the family GP who referred them on to the accident and emergency department at North Tees Hospital on September 2 – 11 days before she died, the court heard.\n\nShe took Isabelle to the family GP who referred them on to the accident and emergency department at North Tees Hospital on September 2 – 11 days before she died, the court heard.\n\nThe mother claimed her toddler hurt herself poking her leg through her cot.\n\nAn X-ray showed she had suffered a spiral fracture to her tibia.\n\nMedics followed a child protection policy, Mr Wright said.\n\nHe added: ‘The response of Alexandra Walker was not the response that you might expect in a concerned mother who had just been informed that her daughter had a broken leg that had gone untreated for several days or weeks.\n\n‘Instead, Alexandra Walker became aggressive and stood up to challenge the nurse.\n\n‘She told her that it was unnecessary and over the top for her daughter to be admitted.\n\n‘She demanded to see another doctor and then declared that she was taking her home anyway.’\n\nMr Wright said Isabelle was admitted and nursing and paediatric staff had safe-guarding concerns.\n\nBut ‘differences of opinion’ between paediatric and orthopaedic teams meant the toddler was discharged back to her mother the next day, the court heard.\n\nMr Wright said: ‘In a terrible twist of fate, you will hear that one of the nurses who expressed the greatest concern about the leg injury on September 2 would be working in the emergency department on September 13 when Isabelle was readmitted 10 days later having sustained her fatal head injury.’\n\nAlexandra Simpson and Harrison Simpson are on trial at Teesside Crown Court (Picture: Andrew McCaren/LNP/REX/Shutterstock)\n\nAfter she was allowed home with her daughter, Walker continued to complain about the way she had been treated and looked up how to win compensation against the NHS, the prosecution said.\n\nJurors were also taken through messages between Walker and her mother discussing Simpson, in which she called him a ‘paedo’.\n\nWalker referred to Simpson not wanting to spend time with her alone and preferred to see her and Isabelle, telling her mother: ‘It’s weird.’\n\nWeeks before Isabelle’s death, Walker used her phone to search the sex offenders register in Middlesbrough, Mr Wright said.\n\nHe told jurors the search was made in the context of his relationship with Isabelle.\n\nMr Wright said Walker revealed to her mother that Simpson had bathed Isabelle when he was alone looking after the toddler.\n\n‘The prosecution are going to invite you to conclude in due course that Alexandra Walker is by this time becoming concerned about Harrison Simpson and his interactions with her daughter,’ he said.\n\nDespite that apparent concern, the court heard Walker left Isabelle alone with Simpson the very next evening.\n\nMr Wright told jurors: ‘For weeks this child had been violently assaulted and her death, by that terrible head injury, was simply the end point in that campaign of violence to which she had been subjected.’\n\nHe said both Walker and Simpson had ‘ample opportunity’ to harm the toddler and in such a small, two-bedroom house ‘each must have been aware of the abuse’.\n\nMr Wright said: ‘When Isabelle was gravely unwell in the week before she died no medical assistance was sought, and even on the day she died, after her heart had stopped and she appeared to all intents and purposes to be dead, Alexandra Walker only called an ambulance when her stepfather told her to, long after she must have known her daughter was critically ill.\n\n‘All of this, we will invite you to conclude, was not because of panic about Isabelle, or a failure to appreciate how ill she was.\n\n‘To the contrary, Alexandra Walker and Harrison Simpson each plainly knew how ill she was, they knew that because they had caused her injuries and their failure to summon help from doctors and finally the emergency services, was an act of self-preservation.\n\n‘They knew the questions that would come and had no convincing answer for them.’\n\nThe trial continues.\n\n******Get in touch with our news team by emailing us atwebnews@metro.co.uk.******\n\n**For more stories like this,** check our news page.\n\n\nAdd Metro as a Preferred Source on Google\nAdd as preferred source\n",
  "title": "Girl, 2, ‘abused and murdered by mum and boyfriend’ in ‘campaign of violence’"
}