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27/09/01 - Victoria's agony
PATRICK MULCHRONE
The Mirror
THIS is the scarred face of murdered Victoria
Climbie, still smiling through her terrible pain.
Her mother wept yesterday as photos of Victoria's horrific
injuries were shown on the first day of the public inquiry
into the eight-year- old's lonely death.
Berthe Climbie, 41, could bear no more and left the
room at the South London hearing.
She and husband Francis had heard how their "little
ray of sunshine" was beaten and starved to death.
Barrister Neil Garnham said: "She was treated
far worse than any dog."
Victoria, also known as Anna, died after months of
torment at the hands of her great aunt Marie Therese
Kouao, 44, and Kouao's lover Carl Manning, 28.
The pair were jailed for life in January for murdering
the girl in Tottenham, North London.
Victoria's parents flew from the Ivory Coast in West
Africa for the hearing.
They listened with heads bowed as Mr Garnham told how
their daughter changed from being a happy child to the
gaunt victim of one of Britain' s worst cases of child
abuse.
Staff at the North Middlesex Hospital where the child
was first seen in July 1999 described her as "delightful
and affectionate".
She loved to be cuddled and hugged and would jump into
nurses' arms to kiss them hello. Eight months later
she was dead.
Victoria had 128 injuries from beatings with coat-hangers,
shoes, a bicycle chain, wooden spoon and fists.
She had been left for days, naked and tied up in a
plastic binliner, in a dark freezing room.
The child slept in a bath and was made to lap food
from a plate like a dog.
Mr Garnham described how Victoria was moved between
Brent and Ealing social services, two hospitals and
the police but was returned to her abusers time and
again.
Inquiry chairman Lord Laming said the inquiry will
shape the way the police, NHS and social services work
with children.
Mrs Climbie said: "She was like a star in my eyes."
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