That it was going on over a period of months is absolutely appalling.”For five days they court had heard of the shocking abuse that began when Chelsea came to live with Brown and her mother, Maria, in August 1999. Mrs Brown, 26, told police her husband would regularly slap Chelsea, causing many bruises. She was yesterday jailed for 18 months after admitting cruelty.Chelsea had been been living with her grandmother before August 1999 because social services were worried of the risk from her father. Brown had offences from 1984, when he was convicted of slapping his baby nephew. But when the grandmother refused to take Chelsea back after a weekend visit, social workers allowed her to remain with her parents at their home in Kirk Hallam, near Ilkeston, Derbyshire.Bruce Buckley, Derbyshire’s director of social services, agreed his staff made errors. He refused to discuss whether the principal social worker in the case, Norma McDevitt, would be disciplined.

He said: “At the time Chelsea went back, no one could have predicted the outcome based on Brown’s previous behaviour. The workers were concerned and that is why they were visiting regularly. Clearly on this occasion we did not make the right decisions.”Brown’s wife had called an ambulance in the December after he claimed he had found Chelsea collapsed. Paramedics found her dressed only in a nappy and took her to hospital The next day her life-support machine was switched off. Doctors said her head injuries were among the worst of their kind, identical to those found in a victims of a car crash.Chelsea had been considered at risk from her father as soon as she was born, and was immediately put on the child protection register.

Brown had also been placed on probation in 1998 for threatening to kill his mother and a social worker. After Chelsea’s death, he tried to blame his second daughter, 17-month-old Courtney, for causing some of the injuries.An independent report found that police, the probation service and the local health authority involved in Chelsea’s care had failed to work together It made 22 recommendations Mr Buckley said “nine-tenths” had been implemented.. A woman police constable was killed after being run over by a stolen car she had been keeping under surveillance. A woman police constable was killed after being run over by a stolen car she had been keeping under surveillance.
PC Alison Armitage, 29, died in hospital on Monday night after she was hit the vehicle in Oldham, Greater Manchester.The officer was due to be commended for her important role in foiling a bank robbery several days ago. PC Armitage had recently been promoted to a specialist divisional unit which focused on serious crime in the area.The officer was part of a team watching a stolen Vauxhall Vectra parked behind a derelict pub in the Chadderton area of Oldham on Monday afternoon when the incident happened. The officers were waiting for the suspected car thieves to return to the vehicle but eventually decided the car must have been dumped and called for a recovery truck to pick it up.