Scarlett Vickers dad guilty of murdering daughter, 14, during kitchen playfight
Scarlett Vickers dad guilty of murdering daughter, 14, during kitchen playfight
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A man accused of murdering his 14-year-old daughter by stabbing her in the heart has been found guilty. Scarlett Vickers was at home in her kitchen when a knife plunged 11cm into her chest. Her dad Simon Vickers has been on trial after denying her murder and manslaughter, claiming the family were “mucking around” in June last year. He said: "We were horse-playing. I must be the unluckiest man in the world.".
The 50-year-old said he had drunk four glasses of wine and smoked half of a joint during the evening in Darlington, Durham. He told the court he accepted causing Scarlett's fatal chest wound but had no knowledge of touching the green-handled knife. Jurors at Teesside Crown Court watched footage of Vickers being booked into custody at Darlington police station after being arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. He was later rearrested on suspicion of murder after Scarlett succumbed to her fatal injury. He was heard saying: "I just want to know how my daughter's doing. We were mucking about, playing in the kitchen, and for some reason this has gone really weird. We were mucking about. I can't believe this.
"Please someone tell me. What's going on? We are going on holiday to f**__g Gran Canaria in six weeks. F**__g hell. I don't believe this is happening. We were cooking tea. Just mucking about in the kitchen. I don't understand how this has happened. Honestly.".
Emergency services had been called to the family's semi-detached home to find Scarlett collapsed on the kitchen floor. He suggested that he must have swiped the knife without realising, after attempting to "swing" a pair of kitchen tongs. Vickers told the jury of a "theory" that Scarlett may then have accidentally come onto the knife after it "hit the side of the hot-plate and stuck out over the side of the counter.".
