A deputy manager of a nursery has been jailed for 14 years for killing a baby girl she strapped face down on a bean bag for more than 90 minutes.

Kate Roughley had been found guilty of manslaughter by ill-treatment of nine-month-old Genevieve Meehan, who died at Tiny Toes in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, on 9 May 2022.

Prosecutors said the girl, known as Gigi by her family, died from asphyxiation from a combination of “pathophysiological stresses”.

Roughley had placed her face-down, tightly swaddled and strapped to a bean bag before covering her with a blanket.

The nursery deputy manager then ignored the cries and distress of Genevieve and showed “sporadic” and “fleeting” interest in her wellbeing for one hour and 37 minutes until she found her blue and unresponsive, prosecutors said.

Sentencing, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen told the defendant Genevieve’s death was “absolutely avoidable”.

She said: “As the harrowing CCTV audio and video footage showed, that day you left Genevieve in that position only carrying the most cursory and infrequent of checks.

“I am certain that every person in this courtroom who watched that footage was willing you to pick her up and remove her from the danger you had placed her, knowing of course that you didn’t.”

The judge went on: “It was apparent that at best you considered Genevieve to be a nuisance and at times displayed antipathy and frustration with her.

“Your interactions with Genevieve on 6 May and 9 May palpably lacked any care, kindness or concern for her wellbeing.”

Read more:
Parents will ‘never forgive’ nursery worker who killed baby girl

As Genevieve’s crying “intensified” as she struggled on the bean bag, the judge told Roughley: “Even then you didn’t approach her, pick her up or shown any concern for her welfare. You left her to die.”

The 37-year-old, who was the duty baby room leader in charge of sleeping arrangements that day, told Manchester Crown Court she placed Genevieve on her side, claiming her face was visible at all times.

She said she had no concerns she was in any distress.

Jurors were in tears at the start of the trial as they watched the nursery CCTV footage which captured the tragedy unfolding from 1.35pm to 3.12pm.

The defendant’s case was that Genevieve’s death was a “terrible and unavoidable accident” and not the result of any unlawful acts.

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Roughley, of Heaton Norris, Stockport, joined Tiny Toes straight from college at the age of 18 and said she gained most of her knowledge of working with babies and young children from her colleagues.

She said the ratio of staff to children at the nursery “gradually worsened”.

In April and May 2022 the staff-to-children ratio was at various times one to nine, two to 11, two to 13 and one to 16, the court heard.

The 73-year-old British man who died from a suspected heart attack after “sudden extreme turbulence” on a London-Singapore flight has been named as Geoff Kitchen.

Dozens more were injured in the incident, with passengers describing people being “launched into the ceiling” and overhead lockers.

Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 from Heathrow was forced to make an emergency landing at Bangkok Airport in Thailand.

Singapore Airlines has apologised and said they are “fully cooperating with the relevant authorities on the investigations”.

Mr Kitchen, from Thornbury near Bristol, was on a six-week holiday with his wife to Singapore, Indonesia and Australia.

His wife is believed to be in hospital following the incident.

In a post on Facebook, Thornbury Musical Theatre Group paid tribute to Mr Kitchen: “It is with a heavy heart that we learn of the devastating news of the passing of our esteemed colleague and friend Geoff Kitchen in the recent Singapore air incident.

“Geoff was always a gentleman with the utmost honesty and integrity and always did what was right for the group.

“His commitment to TMTG was unquestionable and he has served the group and the local community of Thornbury for over 35 years, holding various offices within the group, including chairman, treasurer and most recently secretary.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife and the family at this difficult time, and we ask that you respect their privacy.”

Kittipong Kittikachorn, head of Bangkok airport, said earlier that the 73-year-old died from a probable cardiac arrest.

Forty-seven Britons were among the 211 passengers and 18 crew onboard the plane, a Boeing 777-300ER.

A spokesperson for Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital said: “Seventy-one people needed treatment and six of them had critical injuries.”

However, Singapore Airlines seemed to contradict those numbers and said only 30 people had been taken to hospital.

Read more:
Images show damage in plane after one killed in turbulence
Is flight turbulence getting worse – and what types are there?

Speaking to Sky News, passengers said seatbelts spared some from injury, while others described flight attendants as having cuts to their heads.

Australian Teandra Tukhunen, who had her left arm in a sling in Bangkok’s Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital, said she was asleep and “woken up because I was thrown to the roof and then to the floor”.

Ms Tukhunen, 30, said when the seatbelt sign came on “pretty much immediately, straight after that I was flung to the roof, before I had time to put my seatbelt on unfortunately”.

“It was just so quick, over in a couple of seconds and then you’re just shocked. Everyone’s pretty freaked out.”

Passenger Dzafran Azmir said: “Some people hit their heads on the baggage cabins overhead and dented it, they hit the places where lights and masks are and broke straight through it.”

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Singapore Airlines also said the pilot declared a medical emergency and landed in Bangkok after “sudden extreme turbulence over the Irrawaddy Basin at 37,000 feet about 10 hours after departure”.

Its CEO said in a statement on Tuesday morning they were “very sorry for the traumatic experience that everyone on board SQ321 went through” and their priority would be to give “all possible assistance” to passengers and crew.

Goh Choon Phong added a team had been “swiftly” dispatched to Bangkok to help with ground operations and a relief flight with 143 passengers and crew had landed in Singapore at 5.05am local time on Tuesday.

A total of 79 passengers and crew remained in Bangkok, he added.

In a statement, the UK Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Bangkok and are in contact with the local authorities.”

With protesters gathering and media cameras carefully angled, one of the most important people in the whole Post Office Horizon IT scandal will sit for three full days of questions.

Wednesday is the start of the moment sub-postmaster victims, and likely anyone involved through the years the Post Office injustice was perpetrated, have been waiting for. It’s been five years since the Post Office apologised but victims are awaiting redress and answers they hope Paula Vennells may provide.

Why does Paula Vennells matter?

Former chief executive Ms Vennells was at the helm of the government-owned body during the key Horizon operating years of 2012 to 2019.

She’s been regularly referenced in the inquiry set up to establish a clear account of the introduction and failure of Fujitsu’s Horizon accounting software.

Horizon wrongly generated shortfalls at Post Office branches and led to hundreds of false accounting and theft prosecutions. Many more sub-postmasters racked up significant debts, lost homes and livelihoods, became unwell, left communities and some took their lives as they struggled to repay imaginary losses.

While this is the first opportunity for inquiry barristers to publicly question Ms Vennells, hers has been a continuous presence through the documents presented to dozens of witnesses and the answers they provided.

A previously unknown name, Ms Vennells may now be familiar to the millions who saw a dramatised version of her portrayed in the ITV drama Mr Bates v the Post Office that revived interest in the injustice.

In the wake of the show Ms Vennells, an ordained vicar, gave up her CBE (Commander of the British Empire) and reiterated her apology and regret for the harm caused to sub-postmaster victims.

As she agreed at a government select committee in 2015, the buck stopped with her.

Did she turn a blind eye or take part in a cover-up?

The issue of what Ms Vennells knew and when has been the subject of news reports which detailed the extent of her knowledge of the scandal, years before prosecutions were halted and an apology was issued.

Whether Ms Vennells sought to suppress or minimise evidence or just overlooked it will shed light on why the scandal ran on for as long as it did – from when sub-postmaster and advocate Alan Bates raised issues in 2003 up until 2019 when an apology was issued.

When did she first know sub-postmaster accounts could be altered remotely?

Key to understanding why Ms Vennells acted as she did is when exactly she knew the Post Office’s IT helpdesk or people in Fujitsu could access and edit Post Office branch accounts.

Why did she allow prosecutions to go ahead on the basis there was no remote access, despite legal advice?

Whatever her answer, there’s evidence – in the form of recordings leaked to Sky News – to suggest Ms Vennells had been told of remote access by May 2013, at the latest.

But three years earlier, in 2010 and before Ms Vennells’ tenure as CEO, Post Office prosecutors were alerted to bugs with Horizon, just days before the trial and eventual conviction of sub-postmaster Seema Misra, who was pregnant at the time.

Issues around Post Office convictions were again raised during Ms Vennells term when Simon Clarke, a barrister for a firm advising the organisation, wrote in 2013 that an important Fujitsu witness failed to disclose he knew of bugs, “in plain breach of his duty as an expert witness”.

This put the Post Office “in plain breach of its duty as a prosecutor”, he told the company in his formal legal advice.

Did she authorise £300,000 of legal spending to go after a £25,000 loss?

Sub-postmaster Lee Castleton, recognisable from the Mr Bates Vs The Post Office drama, will be particularly keen to know if Ms Vennells – as former managing director Alan Cook told the inquiry – signed off legal costs of £300,000 to prosecute Mr Castleton for a supposed £25,000 shortfall when she was a network director at the Post Office.

What’s her account of how she got it so wrong? Why did she allow the scandal to continue?

Given the evidence to suggest Ms Vennells was aware of bugs and defects in Horizon years before prosecutions stopped and an apology was made, members of the public and victims alike will want to hear her account of why she did not act to scrap Horizon.

Why did she not act, and apologise, earlier?

Many will want to know why she had such faith in Horizon, Fujitsu and those working for the Post Office when sub-postmasters, MPs representing constituents, legal advisors, and even Second Sight, the forensic accountants hired to investigate were telling her there were problems.

What did she think of sub-postmaster complaints against Fujitsu?

Ms Vennells was clearly not so concerned about Horizon that she did anything to minimise its role, not least end it. So what did she think of what sub-postmasters were telling the organisation they were going through – did she think they lacked credibility, or perhaps that they were small in number and easy to ignore?

Why was she closed to the idea of faults in Horizon?

Horizon shortfalls had been discussed at the Post Office for years – why did Ms Vennells believe it was to be trusted over hundreds of sub-postmasters? How did she come to conclude Horizon was robust and claims against it were not?

Why did she say in 2020 the Post Office ‘did not identify’ defects with Horizon?

We do have an understanding of how Ms Vennells viewed the role of the Post Office and its oversight of the scandal – it’s one of ignorance. Since she stood down in 2019 Ms Vennells said the Post Office was unaware and that’s one of the things she’s apologised for.

“I am sorry for the hurt caused to sub-postmasters and colleagues and to their families and I am sorry for the fact that during my tenure as CEO, despite genuinely working hard to resolve the difficulties, Post Office did not identify and address the defects in the Horizon technology,” she wrote in June 2020.

Why did she say this when there’s evidence the Post Office did know?

Follow the questioning of Paula Vennells at the inquiry live on Sky News on Wednesday. Watch Sky News live here, and on YouTube, or on TV on Freeview 233, Sky 501, Virgin 603, and BT 313. You can also follow the latest on the Sky News website and app.

Why did she tell Parliament there was ‘no evidence’ of ‘miscarriages of justice’?

There’s a lot to be asked about Ms Vennells previous statements. Top of the list for many will be her answers to a February 2015 meeting of what was then the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) select committee.

At that point – after forensic accountants Second Sight had uncovered and informed her of Horizon bugs – she told the MP committee members there was “no evidence” of “miscarriages of justice”.

Why were forensic accountants, who were getting to the bottom of Horizon issues, sacked?

Sub-postmaster advocate and former MP Lord Arbuthnot said he believed it was because they were getting too close to the truth.

Why, when she said she was going to ‘focus fully on working with the ongoing government inquiry’, were her lawyers giving documents to it hours before hearing evidence?

When an inquiry was announced into the scandal in 2020, Ms Vennells said she was going to “focus fully on working with the ongoing government inquiry”.

The inquiry had set a deadline by which all relevant documents were to be submitted, however, 50 additional documents were submitted on behalf of Ms Vennells at 11:17 pm on Thursday night and continued to come on Friday.

Outstanding questions from an earlier inquiry

Another grilling of Ms Vennells was due to take place in March 2020 by MP members of (what was at the time called) the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee.

Given the evolving COVID-19 virus crisis, the hearing was postponed but questions were still asked of Ms Vennells by letter rather than in person.

A number of those questions were not answered.

Committee chair Darren Jones had asked 17 questions but only received 13 answers in her June 2020 written reply.

Whereas she responded to his other questions, these ones received no reply:

• How would you answer those sub-postmasters and postal workers who said that the Post Office investigation branch was more interested in asset recovery than finding the source of errors in Horizon and that they felt they were treated as if they were guilty until proven innocent?

• Did the Post Office Ltd board review the approach and attitude of Post Office investigators at any point during your tenure as CEO? If so, how many times and what was the outcome?

• Were you comfortable as Post Office Ltd CEO that your organisation was prosecuting sub-postmasters without recourse to the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service]?

• The judge in Bates v Post Office stated that Post Office Ltd had operated with a culture of “secrecy and excessive confidentiality”. Did you as Post Office Ltd CEO oversee a culture of “secrecy and excessive confidentiality”; Was Post Office Ltd, as the judge stated, fearful of what it might find if it looked too closely at Horizon?

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“I continue to support and focus on co-operating with the inquiry,” a statement from Ms Vennells said.

“I am truly sorry for the devastation caused to the sub-postmasters and their families, whose lives were torn apart by being wrongly accused and wrongly prosecuted as a result of the Horizon system.”

“I now intend to continue to focus on assisting the Inquiry and will not make any further public comment until it has concluded,” she added.