Ali Zain, 25, is on trial for the murder of his ten-month-old daughter Aiman Abbas Toor
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A dad on trial for murdering his baby daughter told police he held a quilt over her face to stop her crying so he could sleep after an early shift at work, a court has heard.
Ali Zain, 25, appeared at Manchester Crown court accused of murdering his ten-month-old daughter Aiman Abbas Toor at their home on Crompton Street, Farnworth, on November 1, 2019. Andrew Thomas, prosecuting, told the court that initially Mr Zain told paramedics, his wife, and officers that they had both fallen down the stairs.
After an early shift at the Subway shop he worked in, Mr Zain returned home just before 2.30pm to look after his daughter whilst wife Sahar Toor went to work at the Holiday Inn Express near the Trafford Centre, the court heard. The pair had gone upstairs to sleep, as Mr Zain was tired from his early morning shift, whilst she was out.
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Mr Zain said he’d gone to take baby Aiman downstairs when he slipped and fell, dropping his daughter during the fall and hearing a bang as she hit her head, before losing consciousness himself. When he woke up, he said he saw Aiman on the floor next to him, with her head against a cupboard.
He called 999, and a recording of the call was played out in court, with Mr Zain heard to be hysterical as he told the call handler that his baby girl wasn’t breathing. The handler walked him through giving CPR to the infant, and paramedics arrived less than four minutes after the call was made, the court heard. Aiman was rushed to Royal Salford Hospital, where staff desperately tried to resuscitate her. Tragically, she was pronounced dead just before 6.30pm.
Evidence read to the jury from paramedics said that Mr Zain was standing in the door of the property when the ambulance arrived, with “no efforts” made to perform CPR on the youngster. Suspicions were raised about the story Mr Zain had told, as he was pacing around the room and did not appear to be injured at all, the court heard.
No injuries were seen on Aiman to indicate that she had suffered a fall, with no injuries to her head or other parts of her body, the jury were told. A medical examination showed a large number of red spots on Aiman’s face, known as petechial haemorrhages, which indicated that she had died from asphyxia.
Mr Zain stuck with this story during a police interview on November 2, and another on November 13, but in an interview on November 30 he told officers that he had accidentally smothered Aiman when the pair fell asleep together in bed, the court was told.
He told police he’d fallen asleep with Aiman in his arms after trying to feed her, and woke up sometime later and found her in the crook of his arm. Believing that she was asleep, Mr Zain went downstairs, coming back up later on and trying to wake his daughter. When he could not wake her, he realised she was not breathing and called 999. When asked why he didn't mention this before, he said he "panicked", and didn't know why he felt like he had to lie.
Mr Thomas QC said: "The things he'd said in the first interview were a lie, he'd never fallen down the stairs he knew his story didn't stack up so he tried to change it to fit the facts." Mr Zain stuck with this story for two years, until the case came before the courts and a forensic pathologist for the defence said it was unlikely that this process, known as "overlaying" would have produced the same injuries Aiman had.
At this point, Mr Zain admitted killing his daughter, telling officers that he'd been woken up by his daughter crying, and had been unable to soothe her so he held a quilt over her face for "no more than two minutes" to get her to stop crying. When Aiman stopped crying, he told officers that he thought she'd gone back to sleep, and went back to bed himself.
When he woke up, Mr Zain said he went downstairs, before coming back up and trying to wake his daughter, which is when he realised she wasn't breathing. Although he admits to killing her, he denies that he intended to cause her any harm.
Mr Thomas QC told jurors that even if this latest version of events is true, it does not explain all of Aiman's injuries. A post-mortem examination showed that seven of her eight ribs had breaks at the back of the body close to where the rib meets the spine. These fractures were deemed to have occurred two to five days before Aiman's death, with a more recent injury causing bleeding along the spine.
A video of mum Sahar being interviewed by police just after her daughter's death was also played to the court, with Ms Toor telling the officer her husband, who is also her first cousin, doted on their child, spoiling her with everything she wanted or needed.
Proceeding.
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