UK couple who tried to cover up killing their baby jailed

  • 19/05/2017

A British couple who beat their 16-week-old baby to death and then tried to cover their crime by staging her passing on a public bus have been sentenced in court.

Rosalin Baker, 25, and Jeffery Wiltshire, 52, have been convicted of causing the death of baby Imani Wiltshire but were cleared of murder.

However they found out on Thursday (local time) they would be spending the next 11 years in prison.

In footage filmed by a camera installed in the driver's cab, the mother can be seen pretending her child had stopped breathing during the bus journey in London in September 2016.

The couple hatched a plan to disguise the death by claiming the baby stopped breathing during the bus ride - but Imani had already passed away, having suffered multiple injuries including more than 40 fractured ribs, a broken wrist and a fractured skull.

According to The Sun, Baker was casually using her phone for as long as 20 minutes while other passengers attempted to save her baby's life.

When settling on a verdict last month, it took the jury less than 15 hours to decide they found the pair guilty of causing Imani's death.

And on Thursday, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC told the baby's parents that they had not looked after Imani like loving parents ought to.

"You never bonded with Imani. Whether that has any connection with the death of your baby daughter the year before I cannot know, but perhaps it did," he said.

"You, Mr Wiltshire, never went to visit Imani at the hospital at all. That accords with a complete lack of interest you showed in her lifetime.

"Although Imani's life was short, the last part of it can only have been terrifying, painful and bewildering. Both of you at all times put your own interests ahead of those of a helpless and dependent baby for whom you were responsible."

Newshub.