Mother guilty of killing burns girl

The mother of a two-year-old girl who died of septic shock after suffering burns in a scalding hot shower has been found guilty of manslaughter.

Jurors at Nottingham Crown Court unanimously convicted both Eva Logina and Rashpal Chana of the manslaughter of Kristiana Logina, who died at Birmingham Children's Hospital in February last year.

The jury, which heard that Logina and her then boyfriend Chana failed to seek medical treatment for the toddler's burns, is still considering its verdict on a charge of child cruelty.

Logina, 25, and 49-year-old Chana, who were living together in Tennal Road, Harborne, Birmingham, at the time of the death, had both denied manslaughter.

A month-long trial has been told that Kristiana, whose mother is originally from Latvia, died after suffering 10% burns to her body when she was held under the scalding shower.

Her mother and her boyfriend, who claimed not to realise Kristiana was badly injured, applied creams and bandages to her wounds, but never took her to be assessed and treated by medical professionals, the court heard.

In his opening speech to the jury, Timothy Raggatt, QC, alleged that the toddler's life could have been saved if the defendants had sought medical treatment.

At the start of the trial, Mr Raggatt told the jury of five women and seven men that Kristiana was injured between 10 days and a fortnight before her death and eventually died in the paediatric intensive care unit at Birmingham Children's Hospital.

He said: "The nature and extent of the injuries that she sustained were such that it would have been, or should have been, instantly apparent that she required urgent medical treatment.

"The direct cause of her death was something known by the medical profession as septic shock.

"Septic shock means this - it is that your body becomes so infected and debilitated that your organs and vital systems stop working.

"It's one of the awful tragedies of this case that her death was completely avoidable and, had she received medical treatment at or around the time of those injuries, she would have survived."

PA