Dad and daughter 'play fighting' before she died of 11cm stab wound to heart, court hears

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Dad and daughter 'play fighting' before she died of 11cm stab wound to heart, court hears
Author: mirrornews@mirror.co.uk (Jeremy Armstrong)
Published: Jan, 16 2025 13:06

IT would have been 'practically impossible' for a 14-year-old girl to have died from a knife 'thrown' by her dad, a pathologist told a court today. Dr Jennifer Bolton described how Scarlett Vickers suffered a 11 cm (4.3in) stab wound to the left ventricle of her heart in the kitchen of the family home in Darlington, Co Durham. Her father Simon Vickers, 50, told police and paramedics that he and Scarlett had been 'messing around' as he prepared food and denies her murder or manslaughter.

He told police: "One minute I was cooking, then next there was blood gushing from her chest." He also claimed that he had picked up a spatula to throw at his daughter and did so without realising he was also holding a knife. The force of the blow to the left ventricle of her heart caused her to fall to the kitchen floor with blood pouring from a chest wound, Teesside crown court heard.

Mark McKone KC, prosecuting, said that a pathologist report had established that the force of the blow was such that it went deep into Scarlett's chest, and 'must have been held firmly in the defendant's hand'. Dr Jennifer Bolton, who conducted a postmortem on July 6 last year, the day after Scarlett died, found the kitchen knife had penetrated her heart and also gone into her lung. Mr McKone asked if she considered if the knife could have been thrown. She replied: "If the knife is thrown, it would have to hit the body at 90 degrees to the skin. If the angle is different, then it would simply rebound off.

"Clothing also has the potential to deflect the knife. So if someone were to throw the knife, it would have to hit the body at 90 degrees. But in Scarlett's case, it went into the body for 11 cms. "Kitchen knives are not designed to be thrown through the air so it is practically impossible to throw the knife in such a way.... for it to have gone in for 11 cms and then apparently come out again.".

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