He was sentenced to 11 years in prison for killing his disabled stepdaughter, Jessica Dalgleish, just three years old, after he beat her when she refused to eat a sandwich while trying to watch a soccer game on TV.
Man who killed his disabled stepdaughter for refusing to eat a sandwich gets 11 years in prison
It was December 21, 2019 and Paul Marsh, a 27-year-old Englishman, had lied: “She fell down the stairs, I found her slumped behind the banister…”. The man had sent a message to his partner, the child’s mother, Hannah Butler, 29, describing the “incident” in detail and calling a hospital visit “pointless”, despite insisting on calling 999 (the UK emergency number).
Eventually, the autistic girl suffering from complex learning difficulties was airlifted from Folkestone, Kent, to King’s College Hospital in London. She died on Christmas Day of brain injuries from a skull fracture.
Marsh was arrested by Kent Police after giving an unclear account of what had happened.
He was sentenced last month before Maidstone Crown Court.
“I am really shocked that he has been sentenced to such a short prison term. Only 11 years, but it’s disgusting considering what he did to my little girl,” said Hannah.
“He killed her in cold blood because she wanted to watch soccer on TV. I should never have let him be with her, but I trusted him,” the woman admitted.
The trial showed that this was not the first time he had hit her. He hurt her before and got away with it because she was hitting her head a lot due to her disability.
Hannah began dating Marsh in February 2019 after they met at work two years earlier.
He moved in with her and her children in August 2019.
She said, “He was a very quiet guy, he looked nice and kind. I had never seen anything different, he went on to play the role of the nice guy up front of me” The girl added: “I will not accept this sentence, he has committed crimes and I will not stop until we have justice.”
