MARTIAL arts exponent David Hammond was jailed for life yesterday for
beating to death his five-year-old daughter Sukina because she would not
spell her name.
Jamaican-born Hammond, who practises the Korean martial art of
Tae-Kwan-do, was found guilty unanimously at the end of a four-day
trial.
After the Bristol Crown Court hearing, social services admitted making
''a mistake'' in removing Sukina and her family from an ''at risk''
register only months before she died.
Sukina and Hammond's other two children suffered injuries, including
broken limbs, in the three years that the family was known to the social
services. They were on the register for 20 months.
Avon's social services director Walter Harbert, in disclosing the
error, claimed they could have done no more to prevent Sukina's death.
She was examined by a doctor less than three weeks before she died
last December, after an anonymous call that she had been beaten by her
father at their home in St Paul's, Bristol.
However, social services then received a report saying there were no
marks on her to justify removing her from home.
Mr Harbert could not confirm whether the doctor, who has not been
identified, carried out a full medical examination. The matter will now
be raised with with a local family practitioner committee.
Mr Harbert said Sukina suffered a broken leg in 1985 and a broken arm
last year.
But doctors who examined her and another of Hammond's children could
not say how the injuries were inflicted.
The children were taken off the ''at risk'' register in August last
year, after the family circumstances improved, on the decision of a team
of health professionals, police, and NSPCC and social services workers.
Mr Harbert told a news conference he believed the children should have
been on the register earlier.
He added: ''In a sense, all of us connected with the procedures and
system failed Sukina Hammond, and, to that extent, we have to redouble
our efforts to strengthen the system.''
Of the decision to take the children off the register, he said: ''I
think it was a mistake, but the decision to take Sukina off the register
did not contribute to her death.''
There had been a full review of his department's actions and there
would be no disciplinary proceedings. There had been no shoddy work.
Care workers had found no evidence of beating and no-one could
reasonably have foreseen the death.
Mr Harbert stressed: ''In attempting to raise standards of care,
social services staff rely heavily on medical opinion to identify
whether physical injury is non-accidental. In this family, medical
opinion was that abuse had not occurred.''
The jury of seven women and five men took less than an hour to find
Hammond guilty.
They had heard that he became annoyed when Sukina would not spell her
name in reward for sweets.
He attacked her with his fists, a ruler, and a piece of tubing, then
lashed her with the flex from an electric kettle. Altogether, at least
50 blows were struck.
Mr Justice Phillips also imposed a six-month concurrent sentence on
Hammond for assaulting his common-law wife, Patricia Kent.
She was punched when she tried to stop Sukina's beating. She said
yesterday that she was ''really happy'' at the life sentence, but she
could not condemn Hammond as he had been a ''good father in a loving
way''.
The Judge did not comment in passing sentence, but told the jury the
facts of the ''horrible case'' would live in their minds for ever.
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