No justice for Poppi.

eddie wrote:

HoratioTarr wrote:

What was his explanation?

If any of you read the report Tommy posted, above, you’d see that even the pathologists disagree.
Her DNA was on his penis transferred when he went to the toilet.


To be honest, and after reading all this I can only say that if the experts can’t agree then how can anyone be sure what happened?

Perhaps the father did it and is being helped to cover it up by his paedophile police mates?

@Tommy those plastic things in the picture are little plastic seats you buy for toddlers. They’re not toilet seats.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Didge, you are sick in the head...

Tommy Monk wrote:Just more conflated waffle from dodge...!


And Syl... all of that has already been said on thread before...

Tommy Monk wrote:Just more conflated waffle from dodge...!


And Syl... all of that has already been said on thread before...

Syl wrote:

eddie wrote:


If any of you read the report Tommy posted, above, you’d see that even the pathologists disagree.
Her DNA was on his penis transferred when he went to the toilet.


To be honest, and after reading all this I can only say that if the experts can’t agree then how can anyone be sure what happened?

Perhaps the father did it and is being helped to cover it up by his paedophile police mates?

@Tommy those plastic things in the picture are little plastic seats you buy for toddlers. They’re not toilet seats.

Many of the experts think that he sexually assaulted Poppi based on what they found.

The problem was that the police ballsed the investigation up from the start.
Had the babys nappy, her pj bottoms, and the fathers bed sheet been taken as evidence instead of mysteriously disappearing, along with his computer he had been watching porn on the night before,  the outcome would most probably have been different.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Syl wrote:

Many of the experts think that he sexually assaulted Poppi based on what they found.

The problem was that the police ballsed the investigation up from the start.
Had the babys nappy, her pj bottoms, and the fathers bed sheet been taken as evidence instead of mysteriously disappearing, along with his computer he had been watching porn on the night before,  the outcome would most probably have been different.

It wasn't 'many'... I think it was 2... and even 1 of them wasn't sure... while others said they were wrong...!

Also... what do you think those other things would have proved...?

DNA of hers was on the sheet?

DNA of his was on a soiled nappy, and on her PJ bottoms?

Well... of course there would have been!!!

And he sometimes watched a bit of porn on his laptop/pc...?

So what...?

That's not a crime!

You say that the police failed to gather the evidence, as if there really was some real hard evidence there in the first place to conclusively prove something, but it was lost by them failing to gather it, so he's getting away with it...?

What exactly do you think they might have found on any of the things you mentioned, that would have proved anything...?

Didge wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:

It wasn't 'many'... I think it was 2... and even 1 of them wasn't sure... while others said they were wrong...!

Also... what do you think those other things would have proved...?

DNA of hers was on the sheet?

DNA of his was on a soiled nappy, and on her PJ bottoms?

Well... of course there would have been!!!

And he sometimes watched a bit of porn on his laptop/pc...?

So what...?

That's not a crime!

You say that the police failed to gather the evidence, as if there really was some real hard evidence there in the first place to conclusively prove something, but it was lost by them failing to gather it, so he's getting away with it...?

What exactly do you think they might have found on any of the things you mentioned, that would have proved anything...?

Anal sexual assualt is a crime to a toddler is it not Tommy?

They have not enough evidence on DNA, as the Police ballsed this up

What we do have is he admitting to be around the child at this time

We also have evidence that this child was annally sexually assualted

What I have to ask, is why you are so incredible stupid Tommy?

You claimed he is innocent

I claim he is rightly suspected

Watching porn is actually a crime, when it comes to sexual crimes that are against the law, like paedophillia. Mainly as children are victims of such rape

Are you now defending Peado's to watch child porn Tommy?

Tommy Monk wrote:Try reading the thread dodge...


There are credible experts who say the child was not sexually assaulted...


And if he was watching any dodgy porn, then that would already be known about via his internet service provider... but there has been nothing said about any logs of any dodgy porn.


This bloke was woken up by the screaming child in the early hours... the Mrs wasn't doing anything about it cos she was crashed out on the couch downstairs... so he got up (half asleep) to attend to the child, took her into his&mrs room to calm her down and change nappy etc... no clean nappys there so he went downstairs to get one... when he returned, she wasn't breathing... then he rushed downstairs with child to the mrs, and ambulance was called...


I can't imagine anyone who gets woken up in the middle of the night by a screaming child, and has to get up and change a nappy etc... half asleep and pissed off... is going to be thinking that it would be a great time to start trying to stick things up the childs bum...!?


That is just not going to happen!!!

Syl wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:Her DNA was found on his penis... but not on an area that it would have been if he had sexualy assaulted her as is claimed...


Also, none of his DNA was found on/in the girls bottom... and it would definitely have been if he had done what is alleged...


So...quite simply....he didn't do it...!!!

"Intimate swabs from Mr Worthington were not sent away for analysis until July the following year and officers failed to seize a number of key items during search of the house including the double bed sheet where Poppi had collapsed or a laptop Mr Worthington had used to watch pornography on just hours before.

Poppi's pyjama bottoms were also not seized and never found."

http://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/Poppi-inquest-Police-had-historical-intelligence-on-dad-0b102262-6c4a-446d-ada3-939fe0e5f720-ds

eddie wrote:

Syl wrote:

"Intimate swabs from Mr Worthington were not sent away for analysis until July the following year and officers failed to seize a number of key items during search of the house including the double bed sheet where Poppi had collapsed or a laptop Mr Worthington had used to watch pornography on just hours before.

Poppi's pyjama bottoms were also not seized and never found."

http://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/Poppi-inquest-Police-had-historical-intelligence-on-dad-0b102262-6c4a-446d-ada3-939fe0e5f720-ds

If a few pieces of evidence go missing after being seized by the police does that not make it seem more obvious that the police deliberately lost it all?
Ergo, police involved and are probably paedos and helping the father cover up the crime.

You can lose one piece of evidence (you’d  have to be stupid though or have a bunch of stupid people, as keeping evidence safe isn’t down to one person) but losing more than one piece of evidence makes one smell  a big fat smelly rat.

I think the investigating police are somehow involved. Otherwise none of it makes sense.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Syl wrote:


Many of the experts think that he sexually assaulted Poppi based on what they found.

The problem was that the police ballsed the investigation up from the start.
Had the babys nappy, her pj bottoms, and the fathers bed sheet been taken as evidence instead of mysteriously disappearing, along with his computer he had been watching porn on the night before,  the outcome would most probably have been different.

It wasn't 'many'... I think it was 2... and even 1 of them wasn't sure... while others said they were wrong...!

Poppi was declared dead at Furness General hospital, it was the consultant paedatrician there who examined Poppis body who first saw blood coming from her bottom. That was when suspicions Poppi could have been sexually abused were first noted.
Dr Alison Armour, a Home Office pathologist for 30 years, carried out the three-hour post-mortem examination of Poppi five days after her death.
Before she examined Poppi she saw a skeletal survey which revealed an old fracture to Poppi's leg.
The fact it had never been reported suggested to her the child had been abused, she said.
Findings which caused her concern included an internal bruise, small haemorrhages and tiny tears in Poppi's bottom and the fact Poppi's bottom was dilated.
She said these indicated abuse but others disagreed with her conclusion.




Also... what do you think those other things would have proved...?


DNA of hers was on the sheet?


DNA of his was on a soiled nappy, and on her PJ bottoms?


Well... of course there would have been!!!


And he sometimes watched a bit of porn on his laptop/pc...?


So what...?


That's not a crime!

Depends what sort of porn he was watching. He managed to get rid of the computer that held the evidence...why?
He took Poppi to bed with him, something he had never done before.
Why would he refuse to answer over 250 questions asked to him by police officers if he had nothing to hide?


You say that the police failed to gather the evidence, as if there really was some real hard evidence there in the first place to conclusively prove something, but it was lost by them failing to gather it, so he's getting away with it...?


What exactly do you think they might have found on any of the things you mentioned, that would have proved anything...?

Nappy, pj bottoms, bed sheet....why do you think those items, items which Poppi wore or lay on as she died went missing??

Tommy Monk wrote:The small bit of blood was only seen AFTER the child had been dead for a while, and AFTER being seen by numerous other medics and worked on with extensive resuscitation attempts...


The other experts say there was no evidence of sexual abuse...


The man had answered all the questions before... but was advised not to answer any more questions in the latest 'interrogation'...


This bloke was woken up by the screaming child in the early hours... the Mrs wasn't doing anything about it cos she was crashed out on the couch downstairs... so he got up (half asleep) to attend to the child, took her into his&mrs room to calm her down and change nappy etc... no clean nappys there so he went downstairs to get one... when he returned, she wasn't breathing... then he rushed downstairs with child to the mrs, and ambulance was called...


I can't imagine anyone who gets woken up in the middle of the night by a screaming child, and has to get up and change a nappy etc... half asleep and pissed off... is going to be thinking that it would be a great time to start trying to stick things up the childs bum...!?


That is just not going to happen!!!

Tommy Monk wrote:Wrong dodge...!


Showing you don't know what you're talking about...!

Lord Foul wrote:trial by the howling mod on the basis of "he could have done it"

first thing syl's assertation that his semen was on her vagina.....not only incorrect but typical of the way these stories "grow" with a life of their own and the reason we have trial by jury and expert testimony, since the mob judges by heresay and rumour.

second.... experts are in disagreement...just because expert no 3 has a different view to expert no 2 doesnt in fact invalidate expert no2's opinion.

third. whilst "circumstantial evidence may be presented and taken into consideration it would be a MOST dangerous and flaky judgement if that was all it was based on....

I notice in one of the articles quoted by didge the judge stated "on the balance of probabilities"  this kind of judgement is only of use in a CIVIL case, and hence in the instance quoted it is ONLY his opinion...and opinions are like arseholes....everyone has one.

the defining factor for a sound and successful prosecution in a CRIMINAL case is "beyond shadow of doubt"  and you had ALL best hope it stays that way...

sometimes the law gets it wrong, sometimes (too often) the system fucks up....BUT in this case at least it has screwed up on the safe side of delivering if not justice, at least something that accords with the law of the land

he MAY be guilty as charged
but
he may also NOT be guilty

and where the evidence cannot support a clear as day guilty verdict, and there is indeed a "shadow of doubt" however faint.....a prosecution is not only futile but wrong

as to his remaining silent....That is his right....however, the fact he remained silent can be noted and indeed would be presented as evidence against him in court.
remember

might have
could have
is suspected of
and
there is no other way


are NOT arguments that hold weight in a criminal case

Syl wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:trial by the howling mod on the basis of "he could have done it"

first thing syl's assertation that his semen was on her vagina.....not only incorrect but typical of the way these stories "grow" with a life of their own and the reason we have trial by jury and expert testimony, since the mob judges by heresay and rumour.

second.... experts are in disagreement...just because expert no 3 has a different view to expert no 2 doesnt in fact invalidate expert no2's opinion.

third. whilst "circumstantial evidence may be presented and taken into consideration it would be a MOST dangerous and flaky judgement if that was all it was based on....

I notice in one of the articles quoted by didge the judge stated "on the balance of probabilities"  this kind of judgement is only of use in a CIVIL case, and hence in the instance quoted it is ONLY his opinion...and opinions are like arseholes....everyone has one.

the defining factor for a sound and successful prosecution in a CRIMINAL case is "beyond shadow of doubt"  and you had ALL best hope it stays that way...

sometimes the law gets it wrong, sometimes (too often) the system fucks up....BUT in this case at least it has screwed up on the safe side of delivering if not justice, at least something that accords with the law of the land

he MAY be guilty as charged
but
he may also NOT be guilty

and where the evidence cannot support a clear as day guilty verdict, and there is indeed a "shadow of doubt" however faint.....a prosecution is not only futile but wrong

as to his remaining silent....That is his right....however, the fact he remained silent can be noted and indeed would be presented as evidence against him in court.
remember

might have
could have
is suspected of
and
there is no other way


are NOT arguments that hold weight in a criminal case

Show me where I have said his semen was on her vagina. I certainly have not.

You got that wrong for a start...so for that reason I wont bother to read the rest of the post.

Didge wrote:So Victor makes the same mistake

Did any state she was not sexually abused?

no they stated it was one POSSIBILITY amongst a number

None did, they posed views that it could have other possibilities and the lead coroner stated she was sexually abused

and another didnt so???? and moreover that is only his opinion, NOT a fact in law

As to you claiming it solely as an opinion, your reasoning comes straight from the arsehole, as it will be based on actual evidence.

clearly the evidence is insufficient....

What we do know is there is injuries in the anal area and that she was bleeding.

We do know he changed her nappy, suspcious in itself, considering she was bleeding in this area.

We also know she died, as where otherwise she was a healthy child.

The Police are at fault for not properly investigating and obtaining evidence and samples

agreed

That is much is clear.

Lord Foul wrote:

Didge wrote:So Victor makes the same mistake

Did any state she was not sexually abused?

no they stated it was one POSSIBILITY amongst a number

None did, they posed views that it could have other possibilities and the lead coroner stated she was sexually abused

and another didnt so????  and moreover that is only his opinion, NOT a fact in law

As to you claiming it solely as an opinion, your reasoning comes straight from the arsehole, as it will be based on actual evidence.

clearly the evidence is insufficient....

What we do know is there is injuries in the anal area and that she was bleeding.

We do know he changed her nappy, suspcious in itself, considering she was bleeding in this area.

We also know she died, as where otherwise she was a healthy child.

The Police are at fault for not properly investigating and obtaining evidence and samples

agreed

That is much is clear.

however, much as you "wish it were otherwise" (untill you were to become the subject of unwelcome attention) the LAW is quite clear.
I do realise of course that along with the media inflamed and unthinking "pitchfork and torch" brigade that permeates society so much today you would like to hang him purely on your "gut feeling" and such inadequate evidence there is and what you can conflate/imply  but that does not endear you to me as a voice either of reason or that of a civilised man.
the system failed, and unfortunately it looks like the question of his guilt or otherwise is going to be left hanging suspended from nothing, which really, serves neither justice or the victim.......however it DOES what is required if the law is to maintain its integrity and probity as the LAW......

from the point of justice it doesnt sit well with me, obviously, but from the FAR MORE important point of the correct fair and open application of law there is little else that could,now, be done. To do anything other than has been done risks bringing the law into disrepute

NOTE when I say law I mean the Law of the land, as evidenced in the legislation and in the book of common law...NOT the processes and purveyors of that law.....

Didge wrote:Poppi Worthington died aged 13 months after being abused by her father, but the police bungled the case and he was never charged. David Collins goes on the trail of a vital clue that could explain what really happened.

n a notoriously rough estate in Barrow-in-Furness, an industrial town on the southern tip of Cumbria, a man in a tracksuit and beanie comes to the door of his downstairs flat. His face is contorted with rage. Wayne Roebuck looks like he’s about to cross the road and punch my lights out, and the neighbours are urging me to leave — quickly.

Around the corner is the derelict house where Poppi Worthington once lived. In January, a coroner ruled that Poppi died in 2012, aged 13 months, after being abused by her father, Paul Worthington. He remains a free man. The police have never charged him, largely due to a series of mistakes in their investigation, and the fact that an earlier inquest into her death — which lasted just seven minutes — decided the cause was “unexplained”. Worthington now lives in hiding somewhere in the UK, fearful of vigilante justice.

Exactly what happened to Poppi in the final hours before her death, alone with dad upstairs in the family’s three-bedroom house while mum was asleep in the living room, remains a mystery — despite the mass of information surrounding her case. Only Poppi’s father truly knows the answer. But there is one crucial piece of missing evidence that may still exist. Worthington’s laptop. He admitted to using it the night Poppi died — to check the football scores and watch adult porn, he claimed. But the laptop disappeared. Detectives have wanted to find it for years. They want to search it for child porn, for messages Worthington might have sent, online searches he might have made, evidence of what time he was online, what he was doing — anything that could help charge their main suspect.

While the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deliberates the latest coroner’s report to see if there is any new evidence to use as a basis for officially reopening the case, detectives in Cumbria are quietly reinvestigating Poppi’s death, desperate to make up for the mistakes of the past. They have opened the Holmes account — the police file containing all investigative information on the case — on Poppi to feed any new intelligence to the CPS. The laptop could be a key piece of evidence. One source close to the investigation calls it “Poppi’s last chance”.

After weeks of chasing up leads, The Sunday Times has finally learnt what Worthington did with his computer. He gave it, or sold it, to Wayne Roebuck, a neighbour. Following an exhaustive search, I have tracked Roebuck down to his council-owned flat in a row of morbid blocks. It’s a bleak place, a world away from the scenic lakes and cosy villages of tourist Cumbria further north.

Locals tell me Roebuck, a 39-year-old who lives alone with his dog and has described himself as a “nice guy” on Facebook, has held out on the police simply because he doesn’t want people to think him “a grass”. But will he tell me? Might the mystery of Poppi’s final few hours at last be solved?

Poppi was born with a twin brother in October 2011. Her mother, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, already had five other children. She was 16 when her first child was born. This girl was later taken away and adopted when her mother was found to be drunk while in charge of her. Then came another daughter whose father had little contact, two more daughters whose father is thought to be dead, and after that three more children, fathered by Worthington, a boy and the twins.

Worthington, now aged 50, met Poppi’s mother in 2008. There is a large age gap. They are no longer on speaking terms. When the result of January’s inquest came back, she released a statement through her solicitors saying she wanted the CPS to take another look at the case against Worthington, giving a good indication about how she feels about him.

He has long been known to police. In 1995, he was informally interviewed by officers following an “association” with someone “who may have committed offences against children”. Then, in 2003, an unrelated allegation was made against him by a young male relative. The complaint was later retracted without being fully investigated. Both incidents form part of his police intelligence report.

Worthington, a former Tesco worker, has gone into hiding, fearing reprisals following verdicts, first by a High Court judge and then by the coroner in the second inquest, that he abused his daughter. On the gritty estate in Barrow where he once lived, his whereabouts have become legend. A biker in leathers tells me he is on the Costa del Sol. Another resident says she has “heard he’s in the Scottish Highlands”.

Worthington’s sister, Tracy, tells me he moved to Wales shortly after being implicated in the abuse of his daughter. After that, he moved elsewhere in the UK, where he now lives in a house of a friend. He does not have a job. Contrary to some media reports, he is not under the witness-protection programme. He is still using his real name and survives on cash handouts from family and friends. “There’s a lot of support for Paul among friends and people who knew him,” Tracy tells me. “They think he’s innocent and so do I. Paul is terrified. Every time he leaves the house he’s looking over his shoulder. People want to kill him. He can never come back to Cumbria.”

Is that "the rule of LAW"

That support, it appears, does not extend to his old neighbours. A man called Bob, who lives two doors down from Poppi’s old home, growls when I mention Worthington’s name when I meet him on his doorstep. “He worked in Tesco for months after that little girl died,” he tells me, his Staffordshire bull terrier sniffing around my feet. “People round here want to kill him. Everybody thinks he’s a paedo who abused Poppi. I have a daughter myself and I swear to God, if he ever shows his face around here ...”

as above

Poppi, with light-brown hair and rosy cheeks, was said by her mother to be a bubbly, bright little girl. She would wake early every day, between 5am and 6am. She was just starting to learn how to walk. She never managed it. On December 11, 2012, at about 7.30pm, Poppi was put to bed in her cot by her mother. She had two blankets and her pink elephant pillow. Her mum slept downstairs on the sofa. At some point during the night, she was woken suddenly by a loud scream from Poppi.

At about 5.45am, Worthington came downstairs. The mother remembered him saying that Poppi seemed “tired or unwell” and needed a new nappy. She went back to sleep. The next time the mother woke was when Worthington brought Poppi downstairs. She was limp in his arms and wearing no pyjama bottoms. She was not breathing. An ambulance was called and Worthington attempted CPR at the call-handler’s instruction. Minutes later, an ambulance was at the house and rushed Poppi to hospital, where a team of specialists fought for about an hour to get her heart beating again. It was to no avail.

At the hospital, a doctor said he saw fresh blood pouring from her bottom. He said he had never seen an injury like it to a child so young. Poppi’s death was recorded at 7.07am.

These are the known facts, accepted by the coroner. However, Worthington refused to answer 252 questions put to him during the inquest, meaning the coroner was forced to piece together earlier statements Worthington had given to police and the testimony he gave to the family division of the High Court in 2014, after Cumbria county council sought care orders for Poppi’s siblings. When I asked about Worthington refusing to give a proper account of what happened at Poppi’s inquest, his sister, Tracy, told me “that’s what his lawyers advised him to do”.

In his High Court testimony, Worthington said he went to bed at 9.30pm with his laptop. What was he doing on the laptop? “Football results,” he told the hearing, “all the final scores for a football coupon I have put on. Then, once the football results are in, roundabout quarter to 10, 10 to 10, I would sit and scroll Facebook for anything that’s going on and then I would sit and look at X-rated adult stuff for 10 minutes before I go to sleep.”

Worthington claimed he then went to sleep and woke in the middle of the night to the sound of Poppi screaming. He got out of bed and went into Poppi’s room where he found her “rigid”. “She was screaming as though she was having a bad dream,” he had told the police. “I picked her up and cuddled her and took her into my bedroom. I sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to calm her down.”

He claimed that he “undid some press studs on her Babygro” because he was worried about constipation. He said he left her on the bed to go downstairs for a new nappy, and hemmed her in on the adult-sized bed using a pillow and a quilt to make sure she didn’t fall out.

By the time he got back upstairs, Poppi had already settled, he claimed, so he did not replace the nappy and instead let her sleep. A few minutes later he then checked her, he said, and her body was limp. “She wasn’t doing anything. I tapped her face, there was no response. I got up out of bed and picked Poppi up. I ran downstairs with her in my arms.”

He offered no explanation as to why her pyjama bottoms were missing. In January, David Roberts, the Cumbria coroner, concluded that Worthington took off her pyjamas in order to abuse her. This caused Poppi to scream in the night, the scream that woke her mother so suddenly. I have been in similar houses on the estate — they are all built in similar ways: paper-thin walls where the slightest of movements from upstairs can be heard in lower rooms.

The coroner ruled that a sexual assault had taken place. Father and daughter then fell asleep beside one another. Poppi bled heavily from the assault, but that was not the reason she died. She died because she could not breathe properly, most likely because she was under a duvet, or in an awkward position due to the inappropriate sleeping conditions for a child her age. The coroner also noted that Poppi was suffering from an upper-respiratory-tract infection that compromised her ability to breathe.

It would be reasonable to think, based on the unusual injuries seen by hospital staff, that a large-scale police investigation would have been launched, meaning forensic material was gathered and suspects interviewed. This did not happen. Experts often talk about the “golden hour of opportunity” in such cases. This is the period in which police officers should be doing everything they can to sweep up available evidence. It took eight months before police launched a serious criminal investigation into Poppi’s death. By then, much potential evidence had been lost.

An Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report, written in 2015 but published only last year, panned Cumbria police for its “unstructured and disorganised” response. The police watchdog complained that detectives focused on investigating a natural cause of death and did not conclude there was a crime until eight months after Poppi died.

Catherine Thundercloud, a retired Cumbria police officer who reviewed the case for the IPCC, told Poppi’s inquest that sheets, equipment and gloves used by paramedics and hospital staff should have been retained. But a number of these items had not been kept, the inquest heard. She said those failures may have resulted in “vital evidence being lost”. The account from Worthington would have shown the pyjama bottoms, which have never been found, were needed, she said. She added that there had been “a lot of failings by police” and “missed opportunities” in the first two days of the investigation, including neglecting to seize both parents’ mobile phones and Worthington’s laptop. Indeed, it is only now that we can reveal where the laptop went — to Worthington’s neighbour Wayne Roebuck.

Then there were the clear warnings to Cumbria police from Dr Alison Armour, the Home Office pathologist. Poppi’s body showed indications of sexual abuse, she told officers. Poppi also had two historic fractures to her leg that her parents could not explain. The day after the post mortem examination, Armour called Detective Inspector Amanda Sadler to warn her that internal injuries suffered by Poppi could have been caused by penetration.

Yet officers believed Armour had “jumped to conclusions” and decided to do almost nothing to investigate. Sadler’s boss, Detective Chief Inspector Mike Forrester, refused to authorise forensic testing of any items seized. When Armour called Cumbria police on Christmas Eve, 12 days after Poppi’s death, to reiterate her warnings, they dismissed her judgment as “rash” — despite Armour having more than 30 years’ experience in the job.

Since then, countless medical experts have been brought in to examine the case, mostly due to a fact-finding exercise during the High Court proceedings. Dr Nat Cary, a Home Office pathologist with 25 years’ experience, said he would have expected to have found more evidence if she had been abused, but said he could not rule it out. Other experts, testifying at the inquest, said, to varying degrees, that there was not enough evidence to be certain Poppi was abused. Most agree she had suffered some sort of trauma while alive to cause such bleeding, and the coroner stated: “It is my clear view that the fresh bleeding … seen in the ambulance and at the hospital, resulted from trauma … at some point in the period between her being taken from her cot and her death.”

There is enough disagreement, however, to give the CPS concern about charging Worthington, despite the weight of circumstantial evidence against him. Prosecutors fear it won’t play well in front of a jury.

which is the point I'm making

For her part in Cumbria police’s blunders over Poppi’s death, Sadler was demoted in 2016 to the rank of sergeant. She faced a disciplinary hearing that delivered a finding of gross incompetence. She has since left the police. DCI Forrester retired before any action could be taken.

Cumbria county council tried to impose an injunction on the case at the High Court in 2014. If it had succeeded, the public might not have known about Poppi. The council asked for details about her death to be withheld for 15 years, but it failed. Its gagging application came after Mr Justice Jackson had criticised it for failing to take adequate steps to protect Poppi’s siblings for 10 months after her death. It was a failure of the institutions designed to protect vulnerable children in Cumbria, he said.

I met Nazir Afzal, the CPS chief prosecutor in the northwest at the time of the Poppi inquiry. I wanted to get his view of Worthington, and why he was never charged. Sitting in a coffee shop in central Manchester, Afzal clearly had regrets about the case. “I wanted to recommend a charge for the father, Paul. I really did,” he said. “But there were just so many gaps in the case file. The police did a terrible job. At the time, it was my view that, using the test of beyond reasonable doubt, it wouldn’t have got past the jury. That doesn’t mean to say you can’t still get a conviction. All it would take is some new evidence to push it over the line.”

again my point entirely

There was something nagging me: the missing laptop. Could that still be recovered? Many people keep computers for years. Even if they are not used, they hang around in lofts and garages.

“Could it still be useful to the investigation?” I asked Afzal.

“Absolutely,” he replied. “It could solve the mystery of what happened. Without examining it, we will never know.”

Worthington’s sister told me that her brother had sold it to a man who lived on a row of flats in the estate, but she didn’t know who, so I decided to travel to Cumbria to find out.

It is Friday afternoon in Barrow-in-Furness. A bitterly cold wind sweeps in off the bay, which is lined with factories. Poppi’s former home looms large and empty on the edge of a scrap of green. One of the windows is boarded up. Another is covered by a faded Spider-Man curtain. One woman tells me two families have lived there since Poppi’s death. Nobody stays for long, not once they find out what happened here.

A local drug dealer is known to live in one of the flats; I sit and watch customers come and go every 20 minutes or so, three of them skipping down the road in childish glee as they leave. At one point, a police officer knocks on one of the doors — not the dealer’s. I ask him if it is to do with Poppi and he replies: “Something else, can’t tell you what.”

I knock on the doors of every address on the street, speaking to dozens of people. Many are unfriendly. “Is this about Paul? No thanks.” People are scared of being quoted, or of the police. One neighbour, however, tries to help. She promises to ask around. As I leave her house, I spot Roebuck coming out of his flat, but he doesn’t want to speak to me.

As I walk to my car, I can see Roebuck talking to the neighbour. I approach them. To my amazement, Roebuck is spilling the beans about Worthington’s missing laptop. The woman is upset, urging him to go to the police with this information.

“But it’s gone,” Roebuck says. “I gave it to someone in Millom [a town nearby]. Then he moved to Birmingham. That laptop is long gone.”

The neighbour urges him again to tell the police. “Who has the laptop, Wayne?” she asks. But he refuses to say. This is a secret he has kept from the police for six years. He storms off, back up a short concrete slope pocked with decorative stones, towards his flat. The neighbour advises me to get off the estate. “You don’t know what Wayne might do,” she warns.

One last try. “Where’s the laptop now, Wayne?” I ask, feeling for my car keys in my pocket. Roebuck spins around on his doorstep. “I’ve told you, I’ve told the police, I’m not telling nobody where it is, that laptop is gone!” he shouts and slams the door. I drive away from the estate feeling a keen sense of failure.

Later, I speak to one of Roebuck’s friends. Why hasn’t he told the police? “He’s scared,” the friend says. “He’s worried people will think he’s a grass. He doesn’t want to get involved.”

After being contacted by The Sunday Times, Cumbria police are now preparing to reinterview Roebuck as a key witness.

The case remains unsolved. The coroner in the second inquest found that Poppi Worthington died after being abused by one of the people who was supposed to care for her most in this world — her father. She was 13 months old. A baby trying to become a toddler. So far, justice has failed her. Evidence was lost, the crucial window of opportunity for investigating squandered. Now, the last scrap of hope lies with those who refuse to say where that laptop is.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poppi-worthington-death-the-piece-of-lost-evidence-that-could-get-justice-for-the-toddler-s62x8brwf

Tommy Monk wrote:It was claimed to be on her bottom... which was untrue... and already retracted...
The rest of LFs post still stands...
And didge... please fuck off... as it is abundantly clear that you know nothing about this case...!!!
Your spurious waffle is not wanted/needed here...!!!
If you must interject... then at least read and understand the known details first... and get the facts right in your posts...!!!
Otherwise you are just making yourself look a tit... and wasting everybodys time with your nonsense...!

Didge wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:

Didge wrote:So Victor makes the same mistake

Did any state she was not sexually abused?

no they stated it was one POSSIBILITY amongst a number

None did, they posed views that it could have other possibilities and the lead coroner stated she was sexually abused

and another didnt so????  and moreover that is only his opinion, NOT a fact in law

As to you claiming it solely as an opinion, your reasoning comes straight from the arsehole, as it will be based on actual evidence.

clearly the evidence is insufficient....

What we do know is there is injuries in the anal area and that she was bleeding.

We do know he changed her nappy, suspcious in itself, considering she was bleeding in this area.

We also know she died, as where otherwise she was a healthy child.

The Police are at fault for not properly investigating and obtaining evidence and samples

agreed

That is much is clear.

however, much as you "wish it were otherwise" (untill you were to become the subject of unwelcome attention) the LAW is quite clear.
I do realise of course that along with the media inflamed and unthinking "pitchfork and torch" brigade that permeates society so much today you would like to hang him purely on your "gut feeling" and such inadequate evidence there is and what you can conflate/imply  but that does not endear you to me as a voice either of reason or that of a civilised man.
the system failed, and unfortunately it looks like the question of his guilt or otherwise is going to be left hanging suspended from nothing, which really, serves neither justice or the victim.......however it DOES what is required if the law is to maintain its integrity and probity as the LAW......

from the point of justice it doesnt sit well with me, obviously, but from the FAR MORE important point of the correct fair and open application of law there is little else that could,now, be done. To do anything other than has been done risks bringing the law into disrepute

NOTE when I say law I mean the Law of the land, as evidenced in the legislation and in the book of common law...NOT the processes and purveyors of that law.....

1) So again none discounted sexual assualt. If you read what the pathologist Dr Nat Cary said, which really was opinion. He said he expected to see more injuries. Not that there was not injuries. That is not denying sexual assualt or rulling this out. Like I say, if he used an object. Then there would not be any other injuries. Again none actually claim it was not sexual assualt. As seen a perception was based around a view, by Dr Nat Cary that there is normally more injuries.

2) No, its is based on actul evidence and the fact there is internal injuries to the anus

3) The reason people are pissed, is because of many reasons. One the failing of the Police to investigate, which took 8 months. Thus leading to countless vital evidence being lost. How the suspect refused to answer hundreds of questions. The fact that there is most certainly an anal injury, now confirmed by the senior Coroner. Is clearly proving that she was sexually assualted.

Hence the anger and the injustice that Poppi is unlikely to see any justice here

So people have a right to be angry

Didge wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:

however, much as you "wish it were otherwise" (untill you were to become the subject of unwelcome attention) the LAW is quite clear.
I do realise of course that along with the media inflamed and unthinking "pitchfork and torch" brigade that permeates society so much today you would like to hang him purely on your "gut feeling" and such inadequate evidence there is and what you can conflate/imply  but that does not endear you to me as a voice either of reason or that of a civilised man.
the system failed, and unfortunately it looks like the question of his guilt or otherwise is going to be left hanging suspended from nothing, which really, serves neither justice or the victim.......however it DOES what is required if the law is to maintain its integrity and probity as the LAW......

from the point of justice it doesnt sit well with me, obviously, but from the FAR MORE important point of the correct fair and open application of law there is little else that could,now, be done. To do anything other than has been done risks bringing the law into disrepute

NOTE when I say law I mean the Law of the land, as evidenced in the legislation and in the book of common law...NOT the processes and purveyors of that law.....

1) So again none discounted sexual assualt. If you read what the pathologist Dr Nat Cary said, which really was opinion. He said he expected to see more injuries. Not that there was not injuries. That is not denying sexual assualt or rulling this out. Like I say, if he used an object. Then there would not be any other injuries. Again none actually claim it was not sexual assualt. As seen a perception was based around a view, by Dr Nat Cary that there is normally more injuries.

2) No, its is based on actul evidence and the fact there is internal injuries to the anus

3) The reason people are pissed, is because of many reasons. One the failing of the Police to investigate, which took 8 months. Thus leading to countless vital evidence being lost. How the suspect refused to answer hundreds of questions. The fact that there is most certainly an anal injury, now confirmed by the senior Coroner. Is clearly proving that she was sexually assualted.

Hence the anger and the injustice that Poppi is unlikely to see any justice here

So people have a right to be angry

Lord Foul wrote:

Didge wrote:

1) So again none discounted sexual assualt. If you read what the pathologist Dr Nat Cary said, which really was opinion. He said he expected to see more injuries. Not that there was not injuries. That is not denying sexual assualt or rulling this out. Like I say, if he used an object. Then there would not be any other injuries. Again none actually claim it was not sexual assualt. As seen a perception was based around a view, by Dr Nat Cary that there is normally more injuries.

2) No, its is based on actul evidence and the fact there is internal injuries to the anus

3) The reason people are pissed, is because of many reasons. One the failing of the Police to investigate, which took 8 months. Thus leading to countless vital evidence being lost. How the suspect refused to answer hundreds of questions. The fact that there is most certainly an anal injury, now confirmed by the senior Coroner. Is clearly proving that she was sexually assualted.

Hence the anger and the injustice that Poppi is unlikely to see any justice here

So people have a right to be angry

but NOT to abrogate the LAW of the land...... If you want a lawless society where the howling mob rules then fine....otherwise accept that the law has to live with the failings of its servants at times.....

Lord Foul wrote:No, Im saying that you can appeal all you like...but if there is no further and better evidence then you are stuck since the law of the land is obliged to treat all men equally and with a presumption of innocence until proven guilty (which is the point of a trial...a trial "tries" , not the person, but the evidence offered both ways). If better and more damning evidence (the laptop perhaps?) appears then fine if it shows a good case can be made.....BUT .....I am always wary of "trial by media, or trial by mob"

and you had better hope the law isnt changed on some of the issues raised......they exist for everyones protection........

Didge wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:No, Im saying that you can appeal all you like...but if there is no further and better evidence then you are stuck since the law of the land is obliged to treat all men equally and with a presumption of innocence until proven guilty (which is the point of a trial...a trial "tries" , not the person, but the evidence offered both ways). If better and more damning evidence (the laptop perhaps?) appears then fine if it shows a good case can be made.....BUT .....I am always wary of "trial by media, or trial by mob"

and you had better hope the law isnt changed on some of the issues raised......they exist for everyones protection........

Can you show where I have discriminated against him?

Denying him his equal rights?

Never have, what you are suggesting is that I am not allowed my view on this.

People continue to campaign for justice on many issues and i will continue to do the same.

Through the law, he may well be deemed innocent until proven, that does not mean i believe he is innocent. Nor does it mean that I would discriminate against him.

Lord Foul wrote:

Didge wrote:

Can you show where I have discriminated against him?

Denying him his equal rights?

Never have, what you are suggesting is that I am not allowed my view on this.

People continue to campaign for justice on many issues and i will continue to do the same.

Through the law, he may well be deemed innocent until proven, that does not mean i believe he is innocent. Nor does it mean that I would discriminate against him.

maybe not you didge, but look at some of the comments made on here and elsewhere....

Didge wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:It was claimed to be on her bottom... which was untrue... and already retracted...

The rest of LFs post still stands...

And didge... please fuck off... as it is abundantly clear that you know nothing about this case...!!!

Your spurious waffle is not wanted/needed here...!!!

If you must interject... then at least read and understand the known details first... and get the facts right in your posts...!!!

Otherwise you are just making yourself look a tit... and wasting everybodys time with your nonsense...!

I am answering Victor as an adult, where you are responding like a child

You have run away ffrom many of my posts and I am not going to do what some Puppet of the Governements of Syria, Iran and Russia tells me to do

This is a forum, where all can debate.

If you do not like my views, that is your tough shit.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Didge wrote:

I am answering Victor as an adult, where you are responding like a child

You have run away ffrom many of my posts and I am not going to do what some Puppet of the Governements of Syria, Iran and Russia tells me to do

This is a forum, where all can debate.

If you do not like my views, that is your tough shit.

Post facts... not your fantasy based views... that is all I ask...!

Tommy Monk wrote:All I saw was you posting waffle that misrepresented the facts...!
That does not make decent discussion...!

Didge wrote:Poppi Worthington died aged 13 months after being abused by her father, but the police bungled the case and he was never charged. David Collins goes on the trail of a vital clue that could explain what really happened.

n a notoriously rough estate in Barrow-in-Furness, an industrial town on the southern tip of Cumbria, a man in a tracksuit and beanie comes to the door of his downstairs flat. His face is contorted with rage. Wayne Roebuck looks like he’s about to cross the road and punch my lights out, and the neighbours are urging me to leave — quickly.

Around the corner is the derelict house where Poppi Worthington once lived. In January, a coroner ruled that Poppi died in 2012, aged 13 months, after being abused by her father, Paul Worthington. He remains a free man. The police have never charged him, largely due to a series of mistakes in their investigation, and the fact that an earlier inquest into her death — which lasted just seven minutes — decided the cause was “unexplained”. Worthington now lives in hiding somewhere in the UK, fearful of vigilante justice.

Exactly what happened to Poppi in the final hours before her death, alone with dad upstairs in the family’s three-bedroom house while mum was asleep in the living room, remains a mystery — despite the mass of information surrounding her case. Only Poppi’s father truly knows the answer. But there is one crucial piece of missing evidence that may still exist. Worthington’s laptop. He admitted to using it the night Poppi died — to check the football scores and watch adult porn, he claimed. But the laptop disappeared. Detectives have wanted to find it for years. They want to search it for child porn, for messages Worthington might have sent, online searches he might have made, evidence of what time he was online, what he was doing — anything that could help charge their main suspect.

While the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deliberates the latest coroner’s report to see if there is any new evidence to use as a basis for officially reopening the case, detectives in Cumbria are quietly reinvestigating Poppi’s death, desperate to make up for the mistakes of the past. They have opened the Holmes account — the police file containing all investigative information on the case — on Poppi to feed any new intelligence to the CPS. The laptop could be a key piece of evidence. One source close to the investigation calls it “Poppi’s last chance”.

After weeks of chasing up leads, The Sunday Times has finally learnt what Worthington did with his computer. He gave it, or sold it, to Wayne Roebuck, a neighbour. Following an exhaustive search, I have tracked Roebuck down to his council-owned flat in a row of morbid blocks. It’s a bleak place, a world away from the scenic lakes and cosy villages of tourist Cumbria further north.

Locals tell me Roebuck, a 39-year-old who lives alone with his dog and has described himself as a “nice guy” on Facebook, has held out on the police simply because he doesn’t want people to think him “a grass”. But will he tell me? Might the mystery of Poppi’s final few hours at last be solved?

Poppi was born with a twin brother in October 2011. Her mother, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, already had five other children. She was 16 when her first child was born. This girl was later taken away and adopted when her mother was found to be drunk while in charge of her. Then came another daughter whose father had little contact, two more daughters whose father is thought to be dead, and after that three more children, fathered by Worthington, a boy and the twins.

Worthington, now aged 50, met Poppi’s mother in 2008. There is a large age gap. They are no longer on speaking terms. When the result of January’s inquest came back, she released a statement through her solicitors saying she wanted the CPS to take another look at the case against Worthington, giving a good indication about how she feels about him.

He has long been known to police. In 1995, he was informally interviewed by officers following an “association” with someone “who may have committed offences against children”. Then, in 2003, an unrelated allegation was made against him by a young male relative. The complaint was later retracted without being fully investigated. Both incidents form part of his police intelligence report.

Worthington, a former Tesco worker, has gone into hiding, fearing reprisals following verdicts, first by a High Court judge and then by the coroner in the second inquest, that he abused his daughter. On the gritty estate in Barrow where he once lived, his whereabouts have become legend. A biker in leathers tells me he is on the Costa del Sol. Another resident says she has “heard he’s in the Scottish Highlands”.

Worthington’s sister, Tracy, tells me he moved to Wales shortly after being implicated in the abuse of his daughter. After that, he moved elsewhere in the UK, where he now lives in a house of a friend. He does not have a job. Contrary to some media reports, he is not under the witness-protection programme. He is still using his real name and survives on cash handouts from family and friends. “There’s a lot of support for Paul among friends and people who knew him,” Tracy tells me. “They think he’s innocent and so do I. Paul is terrified. Every time he leaves the house he’s looking over his shoulder. People want to kill him. He can never come back to Cumbria.”

That support, it appears, does not extend to his old neighbours. A man called Bob, who lives two doors down from Poppi’s old home, growls when I mention Worthington’s name when I meet him on his doorstep. “He worked in Tesco for months after that little girl died,” he tells me, his Staffordshire bull terrier sniffing around my feet. “People round here want to kill him. Everybody thinks he’s a paedo who abused Poppi. I have a daughter myself and I swear to God, if he ever shows his face around here ...”

Poppi, with light-brown hair and rosy cheeks, was said by her mother to be a bubbly, bright little girl. She would wake early every day, between 5am and 6am. She was just starting to learn how to walk. She never managed it. On December 11, 2012, at about 7.30pm, Poppi was put to bed in her cot by her mother. She had two blankets and her pink elephant pillow. Her mum slept downstairs on the sofa. At some point during the night, she was woken suddenly by a loud scream from Poppi.

At about 5.45am, Worthington came downstairs. The mother remembered him saying that Poppi seemed “tired or unwell” and needed a new nappy. She went back to sleep. The next time the mother woke was when Worthington brought Poppi downstairs. She was limp in his arms and wearing no pyjama bottoms. She was not breathing. An ambulance was called and Worthington attempted CPR at the call-handler’s instruction. Minutes later, an ambulance was at the house and rushed Poppi to hospital, where a team of specialists fought for about an hour to get her heart beating again. It was to no avail.

At the hospital, a doctor said he saw fresh blood pouring from her bottom. He said he had never seen an injury like it to a child so young. Poppi’s death was recorded at 7.07am.

These are the known facts, accepted by the coroner. However, Worthington refused to answer 252 questions put to him during the inquest, meaning the coroner was forced to piece together earlier statements Worthington had given to police and the testimony he gave to the family division of the High Court in 2014, after Cumbria county council sought care orders for Poppi’s siblings. When I asked about Worthington refusing to give a proper account of what happened at Poppi’s inquest, his sister, Tracy, told me “that’s what his lawyers advised him to do”.

In his High Court testimony, Worthington said he went to bed at 9.30pm with his laptop. What was he doing on the laptop? “Football results,” he told the hearing, “all the final scores for a football coupon I have put on. Then, once the football results are in, roundabout quarter to 10, 10 to 10, I would sit and scroll Facebook for anything that’s going on and then I would sit and look at X-rated adult stuff for 10 minutes before I go to sleep.”

Worthington claimed he then went to sleep and woke in the middle of the night to the sound of Poppi screaming. He got out of bed and went into Poppi’s room where he found her “rigid”. “She was screaming as though she was having a bad dream,” he had told the police. “I picked her up and cuddled her and took her into my bedroom. I sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to calm her down.”

He claimed that he “undid some press studs on her Babygro” because he was worried about constipation. He said he left her on the bed to go downstairs for a new nappy, and hemmed her in on the adult-sized bed using a pillow and a quilt to make sure she didn’t fall out.

By the time he got back upstairs, Poppi had already settled, he claimed, so he did not replace the nappy and instead let her sleep. A few minutes later he then checked her, he said, and her body was limp. “She wasn’t doing anything. I tapped her face, there was no response. I got up out of bed and picked Poppi up. I ran downstairs with her in my arms.”

He offered no explanation as to why her pyjama bottoms were missing. In January, David Roberts, the Cumbria coroner, concluded that Worthington took off her pyjamas in order to abuse her. This caused Poppi to scream in the night, the scream that woke her mother so suddenly. I have been in similar houses on the estate — they are all built in similar ways: paper-thin walls where the slightest of movements from upstairs can be heard in lower rooms.

The coroner ruled that a sexual assault had taken place. Father and daughter then fell asleep beside one another. Poppi bled heavily from the assault, but that was not the reason she died. She died because she could not breathe properly, most likely because she was under a duvet, or in an awkward position due to the inappropriate sleeping conditions for a child her age. The coroner also noted that Poppi was suffering from an upper-respiratory-tract infection that compromised her ability to breathe.

It would be reasonable to think, based on the unusual injuries seen by hospital staff, that a large-scale police investigation would have been launched, meaning forensic material was gathered and suspects interviewed. This did not happen. Experts often talk about the “golden hour of opportunity” in such cases. This is the period in which police officers should be doing everything they can to sweep up available evidence. It took eight months before police launched a serious criminal investigation into Poppi’s death. By then, much potential evidence had been lost.

An Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report, written in 2015 but published only last year, panned Cumbria police for its “unstructured and disorganised” response. The police watchdog complained that detectives focused on investigating a natural cause of death and did not conclude there was a crime until eight months after Poppi died.

Catherine Thundercloud, a retired Cumbria police officer who reviewed the case for the IPCC, told Poppi’s inquest that sheets, equipment and gloves used by paramedics and hospital staff should have been retained. But a number of these items had not been kept, the inquest heard. She said those failures may have resulted in “vital evidence being lost”. The account from Worthington would have shown the pyjama bottoms, which have never been found, were needed, she said. She added that there had been “a lot of failings by police” and “missed opportunities” in the first two days of the investigation, including neglecting to seize both parents’ mobile phones and Worthington’s laptop. Indeed, it is only now that we can reveal where the laptop went — to Worthington’s neighbour Wayne Roebuck.

Then there were the clear warnings to Cumbria police from Dr Alison Armour, the Home Office pathologist. Poppi’s body showed indications of sexual abuse, she told officers. Poppi also had two historic fractures to her leg that her parents could not explain. The day after the post mortem examination, Armour called Detective Inspector Amanda Sadler to warn her that internal injuries suffered by Poppi could have been caused by penetration.

Yet officers believed Armour had “jumped to conclusions” and decided to do almost nothing to investigate. Sadler’s boss, Detective Chief Inspector Mike Forrester, refused to authorise forensic testing of any items seized. When Armour called Cumbria police on Christmas Eve, 12 days after Poppi’s death, to reiterate her warnings, they dismissed her judgment as “rash” — despite Armour having more than 30 years’ experience in the job.

Since then, countless medical experts have been brought in to examine the case, mostly due to a fact-finding exercise during the High Court proceedings. Dr Nat Cary, a Home Office pathologist with 25 years’ experience, said he would have expected to have found more evidence if she had been abused, but said he could not rule it out. Other experts, testifying at the inquest, said, to varying degrees, that there was not enough evidence to be certain Poppi was abused. Most agree she had suffered some sort of trauma while alive to cause such bleeding, and the coroner stated: “It is my clear view that the fresh bleeding … seen in the ambulance and at the hospital, resulted from trauma … at some point in the period between her being taken from her cot and her death.”

There is enough disagreement, however, to give the CPS concern about charging Worthington, despite the weight of circumstantial evidence against him. Prosecutors fear it won’t play well in front of a jury.

For her part in Cumbria police’s blunders over Poppi’s death, Sadler was demoted in 2016 to the rank of sergeant. She faced a disciplinary hearing that delivered a finding of gross incompetence. She has since left the police. DCI Forrester retired before any action could be taken.

Cumbria county council tried to impose an injunction on the case at the High Court in 2014. If it had succeeded, the public might not have known about Poppi. The council asked for details about her death to be withheld for 15 years, but it failed. Its gagging application came after Mr Justice Jackson had criticised it for failing to take adequate steps to protect Poppi’s siblings for 10 months after her death. It was a failure of the institutions designed to protect vulnerable children in Cumbria, he said.

I met Nazir Afzal, the CPS chief prosecutor in the northwest at the time of the Poppi inquiry. I wanted to get his view of Worthington, and why he was never charged. Sitting in a coffee shop in central Manchester, Afzal clearly had regrets about the case. “I wanted to recommend a charge for the father, Paul. I really did,” he said. “But there were just so many gaps in the case file. The police did a terrible job. At the time, it was my view that, using the test of beyond reasonable doubt, it wouldn’t have got past the jury. That doesn’t mean to say you can’t still get a conviction. All it would take is some new evidence to push it over the line.”

There was something nagging me: the missing laptop. Could that still be recovered? Many people keep computers for years. Even if they are not used, they hang around in lofts and garages.

“Could it still be useful to the investigation?” I asked Afzal.

“Absolutely,” he replied. “It could solve the mystery of what happened. Without examining it, we will never know.”

Worthington’s sister told me that her brother had sold it to a man who lived on a row of flats in the estate, but she didn’t know who, so I decided to travel to Cumbria to find out.

It is Friday afternoon in Barrow-in-Furness. A bitterly cold wind sweeps in off the bay, which is lined with factories. Poppi’s former home looms large and empty on the edge of a scrap of green. One of the windows is boarded up. Another is covered by a faded Spider-Man curtain. One woman tells me two families have lived there since Poppi’s death. Nobody stays for long, not once they find out what happened here.

A local drug dealer is known to live in one of the flats; I sit and watch customers come and go every 20 minutes or so, three of them skipping down the road in childish glee as they leave. At one point, a police officer knocks on one of the doors — not the dealer’s. I ask him if it is to do with Poppi and he replies: “Something else, can’t tell you what.”

I knock on the doors of every address on the street, speaking to dozens of people. Many are unfriendly. “Is this about Paul? No thanks.” People are scared of being quoted, or of the police. One neighbour, however, tries to help. She promises to ask around. As I leave her house, I spot Roebuck coming out of his flat, but he doesn’t want to speak to me.

As I walk to my car, I can see Roebuck talking to the neighbour. I approach them. To my amazement, Roebuck is spilling the beans about Worthington’s missing laptop. The woman is upset, urging him to go to the police with this information.

“But it’s gone,” Roebuck says. “I gave it to someone in Millom [a town nearby]. Then he moved to Birmingham. That laptop is long gone.”

The neighbour urges him again to tell the police. “Who has the laptop, Wayne?” she asks. But he refuses to say. This is a secret he has kept from the police for six years. He storms off, back up a short concrete slope pocked with decorative stones, towards his flat. The neighbour advises me to get off the estate. “You don’t know what Wayne might do,” she warns.

One last try. “Where’s the laptop now, Wayne?” I ask, feeling for my car keys in my pocket. Roebuck spins around on his doorstep. “I’ve told you, I’ve told the police, I’m not telling nobody where it is, that laptop is gone!” he shouts and slams the door. I drive away from the estate feeling a keen sense of failure.

Later, I speak to one of Roebuck’s friends. Why hasn’t he told the police? “He’s scared,” the friend says. “He’s worried people will think he’s a grass. He doesn’t want to get involved.”

After being contacted by The Sunday Times, Cumbria police are now preparing to reinterview Roebuck as a key witness.

The case remains unsolved. The coroner in the second inquest found that Poppi Worthington died after being abused by one of the people who was supposed to care for her most in this world — her father. She was 13 months old. A baby trying to become a toddler. So far, justice has failed her. Evidence was lost, the crucial window of opportunity for investigating squandered. Now, the last scrap of hope lies with those who refuse to say where that laptop is.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poppi-worthington-death-the-piece-of-lost-evidence-that-could-get-justice-for-the-toddler-s62x8brwf