Play-fight claim dad jailed for murdering daughter

 

A father has been jailed for at least 15 years for murdering his daughter after the jury rejected his claim he had killed her in a play fight.

 

Scarlett Vickers, 14, bled to death at her home in Darlington after being stabbed deep in the chest with a kitchen knife by her father Simon Vickers, 50, in July.

 

Vickers had claimed the fatal injury was “a freak accident” caused while they were “mucking about,” but jurors found him guilty of murder with a majority verdict.

 

Jailing Vickers for life with a minimum term, Mr Justice Cotter said the killer had never been truthful about the “loss of temper” that turned a “happy family night into tragedy.”.

 

The court heard Vickers’ partner and Scarlett’s mother, Sarah Hall, who was also present when she was killed, was “resolute” in her belief that he was innocent.

Scarlett suffered a 4-in-deep wound to her heart in the kitchen of her family home on Geneva Road on the evening of 5 July, her murder trial had heard.

Both her father and mother claimed the injury was inflicted accidentally, but a pathologist said it was “practically impossible” for it to have been caused by anything other than a knife being held firmly in a hand.

Simon Vickers was found guilty of murder
At the sentencing hearing, prosecutor Mark McKone KC revealed Vickers had a previous conviction from 1993 for wounding with intent after he slashed a man’s face with a Stanley knife, for which the then 19-year-old got two years’ detention, as well as some dishonesty offenses.

Mr McKone said Vickers’ account of what happened to Scarlett was “inconsistent” with the pathologist’s findings.