Jury told Darlington dad's claim daughter died after he accidentally threw knife at her 'impossible'

A father’s claim that his 14-year-old daughter died after he accidentally threw a knife at her during a kitchen “play-fight” would be “practically impossible”, a court has heard.

Simon Vickers, 50, denies both the murder and the manslaughter of his daughter Scarlett in the kitchen of their home in Darlington on 5 July last year.

• Our reporter Rachel Bullock was at Teesside Crown Court for us today.

Teesside Crown Court heard Scarlett died after being stabbed through the heart.

Jurors have heard Vickers told emergency services they had been playing one minute and the next blood was “gushing” from her chest.

He told a police officer they had been “cooking tea … mucking about, playing around and started throwing objects at each other”.

On Thursday (16 January), Home Office forensic pathologist Dr Jennifer Bolton told the trial Scarlett had died from a single 11cm wound to the left of her chest which went through her lung and into her heart, causing fatal blood loss.

Dr Bolton said it was her opinion that the knife was being “held tightly” at the time so that when it came into contact with Scarlett, it went into her.

“That typically means a firm grip and that arm is braced in a certain way,” she said.

Asked by prosecutor Mark McKone KC if she thought the knife could have been thrown towards Scarlett, Dr Bolton said: “Kitchen knives aren’t designed to be thrown, they aren’t designed to go through the air.

“So, it is practically impossible for a kitchen knife to be thrown for it to travel in such a way that it lands on Scarlett’s clothing and then her skin at 90 degrees, so it doesn’t simply bounce off or scratch across, and then go 11cm in and apparently come out again.”

Opening the case to jurors earlier in the week, Mr McKone said the prosecution case was that this was not an accident as the wound was too deep to have been caused accidentally.

Scarlett’s mother, Sarah Hall, was present in the kitchen and tried to save the teenager as she bled to death on the floor, jurors heard.

She made a 999 call and told the operator they had been “messing about”, and that her partner had thrown something at their daughter “and he didn’t realise”.

Vickers told paramedic Andrew Crow that his daughter had lunged towards him during a bout of play-fighting and that they were “intoxicated” drinking wine after a “nice day” watching football.

Neither parent realised Scarlett was hurt until she yelled, the court heard.

After he was arrested, Vickers said at the police station: “We were just playing in the kitchen, I don’t know how this happened, one minute I was cooking, next there’s blood gushing out of her chest.”

Asked in a police interview if he was responsible for his daughter’s death, Mr McKone said Vickers replied: “I must be.”

He told detectives his partner was cooking, Scarlett threw some grapes at him, he threw some back and he threw some tongs at her.

Vickers said he now knew that he picked up the blade but he did not see it at the time.

Defence barrister Nicholas Lumley KC said Scarlett was the much-loved only child of her parents and that Vickers “had no desire to harm her in any way at all”.

The trial continues.

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