A mum has denied murdering her daughter, 3, saying she ‘felt sick and heartbroken’ when she realised she was dead.
Nicola Priest, 22, told a court she would ‘never hurt’ Kaylee-Jayde Priest after the little girl was found dead at a flat in Kingshurst, the West Midlands on August 9, 2020.
She and alleged lover Callum Redfern, 21, are both accused of murder, a separate alternative charge of manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of a child and cruelty to a child, between June 12 and August 3 2020. Both deny all wrongdoing.
Priest claimed to have heard ‘three to five smacks’ coming from the bedroom where her child was with Redfern the night before she died from serious chest and abdominal injuries.
Asked who she believed was to blame for her daughter’s death, the mother replied: ‘Cal.’
She told jurors: “I ran into the bedroom and she was holding her stomach. I said “what the f* happened?”’
Priest says she ‘dropped to the floor screaming’ when she found Kaylee-Jayde ‘passed out and stiff’ on the morning of August 9.
Birmingham Crown Court previously heard the youngster was ‘dead before her mum rang 999’.
Probed on why she didn’t immediately call for emergency help, Priest replied: ‘I was scared I didn’t know how to approach it.
‘I thought instantly she was dead. I tried to do CPR. I was scared to leave her.
‘I was trying to do what she asked me. I felt sick, upset and heartbroken. I had just lost my little girl.’
Jurors previously heard that Priest would hit Kaylee around the head and refer to her as a ‘f**** brat’.
The little girl – described in court as ‘a happy child’ – was also heard sobbing in ‘a fearful tone’, it was claimed.
But Priest has refuted the suggestion she would have agreed to someone inflicting injuries on her daughter.
She said: ‘No. If I had known that punching or kicking had been done I would have taken her straight to the hospital, if I had known.’
The trial continues.
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