Murder-accused dad 'had no reason to kill girl'

A father accused of murdering his 14-year-old daughter had no reason to kill her, jurors have been told.

Scarlett Vickers suffered a 4in-deep (11cm) wound to her chest and bled to death at her family home in Darlington in July, Teesside Crown Court has heard.

Simon Vickers, 50, accepts he caused his daughter's death in a "freak accident" during a play fight but denies murder and manslaughter.

In closing speeches, prosecutors claimed the injury could not have been inflicted accidentally but Mr Vickers' team said he doted on his daughter.

Scarlett was fatally injured at the family's home on Geneva Road on 5 July last year, with her parents saying they were all "mucking about", throwing grapes at each other in the kitchen.

Mr Vickers told the trial Scarlett was his "purpose" in life and her death was a "freak accident" while they were having "harmless fun".

He said he swiped a pair of tongs towards Scarlett which must have caught a knife, which he had not seen.

Mr Vickers said he did not actually know what happened but it was possible the knife got stuck against a hot plate and jutted out over the counter, with Scarlett then running on to the blade.

A pathologist said it was "practically impossible" for a thrown knife to have caused the injury and Mr Vickers was gripping it firmly in his hand when Scarlett was wounded, but Mr Vickers vehemently denies holding it.

Scarlett's mother Sarah Hall told jurors she believed it was an accident and her partner of 27 years would never harm their daughter.

In his closing speech, prosecutor Mark McKone KC said it was not doubted Mr Vickers loved Scarlett and was "devastated" by her death.

But he told jurors they needed to set aside emotion and sympathy and use "clinical analysis of the evidence".

Mr McKone said Mr Vickers "did not and could not have stabbed his daughter through the heart entirely accidentally", pointing to the "clear" conclusions of pathologist Dr Jennifer Bolton.

He said her findings were "the key to what happened" and the knife must have been being "firmly" held to cause such a deep wound, adding the main issue for the jury to decide was whether or not Mr Vickers "made a decision" to pick up a knife.

He said Mr Vickers must be lying about what happened and had changed his account, first saying he may have thrown the knife, before later saying it got wedged on the counter.

"Whatever account Mr Vickers has given, [he] has not given you an account which can explain what happened unless the pathologist is wrong," Mr McKone said.

The prosecutor said in the "heat of the moment" Mr Vickers picked up a knife and must have known it could cause serious injury or death, adding: "This has gone beyond horseplay."

Mr Vickers' barrister Nicholas Lumley KC said the prosecution had failed to prove the case, as was their burden.

He said they had not asked Mr Vickers key questions during his cross-examination in the witness box, such as never actually accusing him directly of deliberately killing his daughter.

"Is it because the prosecution don't believe it either?" Mr Lumley said. "They don't have the heart to put it to him because they don't believe it either?"

Mr Lumley said what occurred in the kitchen might never actually be known but Mr Vickers' account of what might have happened, which was given by the devastated father in "surreal circumstances", had been "unchallenged" in court.

He said Dr Bolton had offered an opinion but it was for jurors to decide what was true based on all the evidence, including the accounts given by both Mr Vickers and Ms Hall.

He said they were already "serving life sentences" and their lives and hearts were "broken".

Mr Lumley said they had called themselves the "three S's", but now there were only two.

He said the prosecution did not need to prove a motive but it would helpful if they did, adding investigators trawled through the family's phones and lives but found "no hint of discord or disharmony" and only that they were a "perfectly normal, loving" family, with Scarlett a "thriving" and happy young woman.

"Why murder your only daughter, your reason for living, for working, for being? A girl for whom you would die?" Mr Lumley said.

"There is no reason, there is no motive and that's the end of it."

The trial continues.

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