Star Hobson displayed cherubic blue eyes, and had a beautiful face that would melt the most hardened hearts.
On Facebook, you can still catch her staring out at the universe in wonder.
She is wearing pink and a tiara in one photo. One picture has her wearing a pink tiara and another one showing her sporting a blue bow on the top of her head. The third picture shows her cuddled up next to her Teddy Bear on the couch.
Here is Frankie Smith, Savannah Brockhill, Savannah’s mother, wanted us all to see her little girl; this one of a smiley, happy and beautiful toddler.
It was, however, an inexplicable lie and a distortion of the truth.
The reality of 16-month-old Star’s tragically short life was captured on chilling home video and CCTV footage found by the police.
The most shocking was the clip in which Brockhill punched Star in the face, stomach and head while feeding Star with a bottle.
Star suffered 21 injuries during this time. Over a period of three hours, Star suffered abuse.
She was also filmed crawling painfully up the communal staircase to the flat in Keighley, West Yorkshire, where she lived – existed would be more accurate – with her mum.
It was here, in a separate incident, that she toppled on to the floor after falling asleep – that too was captured on camera before being set to music and edited in slow-motion by Brockhill, who was a constant presence in the flat.
She ‘found it funny’ – like something that might be featured on TV’s You’ve Been Framed – she would later tell the jury.
Smith didn’t protect her daughter from her friend and held her head under water to stop her from crying.
Star had put her in such a poor mood that she destroyed her tickets to The Rubettes concert.
This was the world Star Hobson inhabited, a world no child should have to endure: a mother who showed no interest in motherhood and was capable of cruelty, and a ‘stepmother’ who was truly wicked.
Frankie Smith (age 20) didn’t do anything to protect Star her baby girl from her girlfriend. Frankie even submerged her head to stop Star crying.
Savannah Brockhill, 28, left school at the age of ten and came out at 19. She came from an English gipsy family; her mother’s side traditionally lived in a caravan
Which was more guilty?
After an eight week trial, the jury convicted Brockhill of murder.
Smith, however, was also found guilty of permitting or causing the death a child.
By the time of Star’s death in September 2020, she had suffered what Bradford Crown Court heard were ‘utterly catastrophic’ and ‘unsurvivable’ abdominal injuries, as well as two breaks to her shin bone caused by forceful twisting; a 12cm ‘crazy-paving’ fracture to the back of her skull; fractured ribs; a laceration to a vein.
However, there were many missed chances to save her.
Friends and family contacted social service five times. Their concerns were ignored five times.
One of the five interventions involved police officers, and the sixth saw them contact social services independently.
Social workers in front-line positions are subject to constant pressure. They must manage ever increasing caseloads and depleted resources.
Sometimes they are left in the invidious position of being damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
The public, however, will find it difficult to comprehend why Savannah Brockhill was given the benefit the doubt over and over again.
Star was brought to Bradford Royal Infirmary. The doctor who examined Star accepted Smith’s excuse that she bumped into a coffee table and sustained other bruising while playing with a puppy
Star Hobson was a star with cherubic blue eyes, and a smile that could melt hearts. On Facebook, you can still find her staring out at the universe in wonder.
The reality of 16-month-old Star’s tragically short life was captured on chilling home video and CCTV footage found by the police
It seems that political correctness played an important role in this.
Social workers, the jury heard, accepted Smith’s story that the complaints were ‘malicious’ and down to relatives not approving of their same-sex relationship or Brockhill’s traveller background.
Was the fact that Star’s maternal great-grandmother Anita Smith and her partner David Fawcett were worried about her having her head shaved in the gipsy tradition, as most grandparents would be, evidence of this ‘maliciousness’?
Again, it seems as if it might have been, as Mr Fawcett explained outside court: ‘We found out that Brockhill wanted to shave Star’s head like gypsies do.
‘Anita phoned social services, but we didn’t even get a visit or get told the case had been closed.
‘Our referral was classed as malicious but there was no malice on our part. Anita has friends who are in same-sex relationships and she also has happy gipsy friends.’
What is the number of times we have been there? Arthur Labinjo Hughes was six when he was shot by his father, and later died in the arms of his stepmother.
Authorities ignored overwhelming evidence to show that Arthur had been tortured, according to reports earlier in the month.
Star’s suffering seems all the more shocking because society tends to view women as carers, nurturers and protectors.
Brockhill, age 28, was an ex-boxer and worked as a bouncer at a pub and security guard.
When she was ten years old, Brockhill left school to go home. She graduated at age 19. Brockhill came from an English gipsy family; her mother’s side traditionally lived in a caravan.
She was 16 years old when she received a caution from the police for a crime of public order and was later convicted of using abusive, threatening words or behavior in her 20s.
Before moving into security work, she was employed in the care industry – yes, she was a carer.
Smith, however, was from a different background.
She was raised well in Bradford’s Baildon region, but her intelligence was so low that she was in the bottom two percent.
Described in court as ‘immature’, she was still playing with dolls not long before she became pregnant.
Star was the result of an affair Smith had with a student on May 21, 2019. After Smith went to Sunderland University, he split with his girlfriend of a month.
Smith was a new single mom who preferred drinking over caring for Star. She relied on her friends and family to take care of Star. Brockhill met Smith at The Sun in Bradford on one of these nights.
‘She was very confident and outgoing, and was really interested in me,’ Smith, a supermarket worker, told the jury. ‘I liked how confident she was but I’d never looked at a girl in that way before.’
Their 11-month relationship was toxic from the start, with Smith becoming subservient to the domineering – and increasingly violent – Brockhill.
Brockhill made Smith feel guilty and forced her to adopt a rigid eating and sleeping schedule.
However, it went beyond that. Her controlling personality sometimes bordered on psychotic.
Brockhill cautioned Smith against talking to any men about her girlfriend or showing interest in them.
On one occasion, she posted a video online with knife and bomb emojis and the message: ‘I am a psycho when it comes to my girlfriend and wouldn’t mind putting anyone in a [wheel]If they look at her incorrectly, she will be their chair for life. Keep safe, don’t message my girlfriend.’
Once, when Smith went out without her, she sent her more than 200 messages and calls, along with a video of Brockhill ‘licking blood off a wall’ and threatening ‘to stab someone tonight’.
Partner in Death: Savannah Brockhill (28) and Frankie Smith (20), were both convicted of Star Hobson’s murder.
Star was smiling happy before her suffering from her murdering mother. Police have released this picture.
In one instance, Abused Star became so dazed that she entered a sofa to see a social worker.
Nevertheless, Smith became ‘obsessed’ with her older lover. The two would spend hours on the phone ignoring Star’s needs – when she was not actually being brutalised.
But Star’s plight did not go unnoticed; abuse such as this rarely does.
The first social services referral was made on January 23 last year – eight months before Star died.
Holly Jones was a babysitter for Smith and noticed that Smith had been bruising. She raised concerns about domestic abuse and police visited Smith.
There were no actions taken.
The couple were clean and tidy in their housing association apartment. But then people who abuse children are ‘cunning and clever’ – words, of course, used to describe Brockhill in court.
The following month, after the first referral, Star went to stay with her great-grandmother Mrs Smith and Mr Fawcett for ten weeks because they thought her mother wasn’t coping.
Star lost weight and was happy again.
On the day Smith came to take her back, a neighbour recalled how ‘Star was terrified and screaming down the path’.
Just nine days later Mrs Smith contacted social services after, the court heard, learning about play-fights in the flat with Star that involved a ‘choke-slam’ wrestling manoeuvre.
Star was found to be at ease with Brockhill by social workers who saw no signs of bruising.
No actions were taken.
The couple then prohibited Mrs Smith and Mister Fawcett from going to Star.
But in June the authorities were called in for the third time when Smith’s older sister Alicia Szepler took photographs of bruises on her niece and sent them to police.
Officers were told by her that Star’s sibling had abused her and taken away her food.
The allegations coincided with Star’s biological father, Jordan Hobson, who had also been sent the picture of his bruised daughter, voicing his concerns with social services.
The infant was brought to Bradford Royal Infirmary. The doctor who examined Star accepted Smith’s excuse that she bumped into a coffee table and sustained other bruising while playing with a puppy.
There were no actions taken.
Two more referrals – the fourth and fifth – were made to social services by friends and relatives.
No actions were taken.
Asked about the referrals under cross-examination, Smith said her grandmother was from a generation that sometimes had difficulty with gay relationships – but it was social services who actually used the word ‘malicious’ to describe the complaints, she insisted.
‘They said it to me,’ Smith told the jury.
She was pressed on this point by prosecutor Alistair MacDonald QC, who asked her: ‘At every social services referral you were convincing them they were malicious reports, they [her family] didn’t like your relationship?’ ‘Yes,’ she replied.
Star’s fleeting life came to an end after being ‘punched, stamped on, or kicked’ in the stomach, probably by Brockhill, while Smith left the living room to go to the bathroom, the court heard.
Star suffered from bleeding due to the savagery of September 2013.
Instead of dialling 999, the two people who were supposed to protect her Googled ‘how to bring a baby out of shock’ and there was an 11-minute delay as Brockhill attempted CPR before calling an ambulance.
Star’s fleeting life came to an end after being ‘punched, stamped on, or kicked’ in the stomach, probably by Brockhill, while Smith left the living room to go to the bathroom, the court heard
Star was left with bleeding from her abdomen after the September savagery.
Star was dead by the time she reached hospital. Star was already dead by the time she reached hospital.
Smith initially told police that Star had fallen onto Star alone, but she later admitted to lying.
Smith provided a second statement to police during trial. This revealed the truth about events: Brockhill held Star right after the attack.
The failings in this case are perhaps epitomised by the fifth and final complaint to social services from Star’s maternal great-grandfather which resulted in an unannounced visit. Star had some swelling and wasn’t able to stand on her own.
Her mother claimed that she fell down the steps. Her ‘explanation’ was accepted – again.
It was decided that the social worker would keep in touch. Smith arranged for a September 22 meeting, but Smith texted to cancel.
Star was saved by that last attempt. Later that day, she died from her injuries.