Mauled girl’s grandmother ‘accepts blame’
Jacqueline Simpson was babysitting Ellie in the early hours of New Year’s Day when she let pit bull terrier Reuben into her house in St Helens, Merseyside.
The powerfully-built dog shook the nursery school pupil for 20 minutes, inflicting 72 injuries on her body, Liverpool Crown Court has heard.
Asked in court if she accepted responsibility, Simpson, 45, said: “Yes, because I let the dog in. If things had gone the way they should have that day I wouldn’t have had the kids anyway. I opened the door and it’s my fault.
“I never thought the dog would do anything to Ellie,” she said.
Cross-examining her, Neil Flewitt QC, said: “You let that child down, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she answered.
Simpson admitted consuming two bottles of wine and smoking 10 cannabis joints on the tragic day.
She said she knew the dog called Reuben was a powerful, banned animal.
But she denied worrying St Helens Council would discover the banned dog in her home and said a vet told her son Kiel that Reuben needed behavioural classes.
Mr Flewitt asked her: “You have a strong, powerful dog you know is banned by the law — a dog that should have but wasn’t getting behavioural classes — and you knew that in the summer of 2006?”
“Yes,” she replied.
Prosecuting QC Mr Flewitt said if she considered Reuben’s exceptional strength and previous attacks Simpson must “have realised it could have killed a five-year-old girl”.
She answered: “I wouldn’t have thought it could have done that to a baby it had grown up with.” The jury were told
Simpson had broken a family rule by letting the dog inside the house when Ellie was present.
But Simpson, who denies manslaughter by gross negligence, claimed there was no such rule.
The case was adjourned until today where counsel will make their closing speeches. It is thought the jury will retire to consider their verdict on Monday.
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