Poppi Worthington: Police recover laptop used by toddler's father to watch pornography hours before she died

Paul Worthington denies wrongdoing and prosecutors have said there was not sufficient evidence to charge him over the toddler's death

Police are examining a laptop used by Poppi Worthington’s father on the night the toddler died in his bed.

An inquest concluded that the 13-month-old was sexually assaulted before she accidentally suffocated in December 2012, but prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone over her death because of a botched police investigation.

Paul Worthington, who denies any wrongdoing told an inquest he had watched pornography on his computer and viewed football scores in the hours before his daughter fell unconscious.

Currently believed to be in hiding, he claimed he sold the laptop on to a friend and it was not found during the original police investigation into Poppi’s death.

Cumbria Constabulary confirmed officers have now recovered a number of new items relating to its ongoing inquiry, including a laptop.

“The laptop is subject to meticulous forensic examination, by specialist officers, to determine whether it is relevant to potential enquiries concerning Poppi Worthington,” a spokesperson said.

The 13-month-old’s mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has repeatedly called for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to pursue Mr Worthington and spoken out about evidence gathering failures by police.

The Independent understands police put out a press statement on the latest development before informing her or her legal team that the laptop had been found.

Police photo of Poppi Worthington's empty cot (Cumbria County Council/PA)

In March, the CPS had announced that Mr Worthington could not be prosecuted unless “significantly new evidence” was uncovered.

Three different prosecutors had previously considered the case – first after a referral from Cumbria Constabulary in March 2015, then in June 2016 following a family court hearing and thirdly in November that year, after Poppi’s mother appealed for the decision to be reviewed.

An original seven minute inquest that declared the toddler’s death unexplained was later quashed as “irregular” by the High Court, and the second inquest held in Kendal concluded in January.

Mr Worthington told the court he put Poppi in his bed at their home in Barrow-in-Furness and went to get a fresh nappy, but reached over minutes later to find her limp.

He described his daughter as a “bully” at one hearing and used a rule meaning that inquest witnesses are not obliged to answer incriminating questions 252 times.

Mr Worthington would not explain how her DNA came to be on his penis and refused to recount the hours leading up to Poppi’s death.

David Roberts, HM senior coroner for Cumbria, concluded that his account did not “stand up to scrutiny”.

He ruled at some point after 2.30am on 12 December 2012, Poppi was taken from her cot and sexually assaulted, although it was not the cause of her death.

The toddler, who was suffering from an upper respiratory tract infection at the time, later died from asphyxia.

Mr Roberts told the inquest her ability to breathe was compromised by the illness and an “unsafe sleeping environment” after her father took her from her cot and placed her next to him in his double bed.

“When her father awoke he discovered that Poppi was no longer breathing and, shortly before 5.56am, he took her downstairs in an unresponsive state,” Mr Roberts said. “I find that, in fact, she was dead at that point.”

Failings by Cumbria Constabulary, which lost vital evidence and failed to interview witnesses or make arrests for several months, meant that there was no forensic way of proving what happened to Poppi.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that detectives responding to the case were “unstructured and disorganised”, highlighting the lengthy delay into a criminal investigation taking place “despite there being significant suspicious circumstances from the outset”.

When officers interviewed Mr Worthington, they “did not have any suspicions despite the fact that the father appeared to be getting things wrong and changing his story and there were inconsistencies between the two accounts provided by the parents”, the report found.

Instead of seeking to investigate Poppi’s death as a potential crime, an officer put his responses down to the fact it was a “traumatic situation” and did not raise the alarm.

Police were hampered by opposing findings by two pathologists who conducted a post-mortem on Poppi, with one concerned she had sustained injuries from serious sexual abuse, and the other believing a medical condition was the cause.

Two officers were found to have cases to answer for gross misconduct, but one retired before the watchdog released its findings and the second left Cumbria Police after being demoted as a penalty for “incompetency”.

The force referred itself to the IOPC for investigation after Poppi’s death and has apologised to her family.