Mother leaves boyfriend alone with toddler despite suspecting he was a pedophile – she is found at the bottom of the staircase with no pulse

A jury has just found a Teesside mother and her boyfriend guilty of murdering her two-year-old daughter. The trial took place on July 28, and the court heard she had privately worried her partner was a pedophile, but left him alone with the child regardless.

Per the report by the BBC, Isabelle Rose Welsh stopped responding at the house she shared with her mother on Hartington Close. She died in hospital a day later on September 14, 2025. Alexandra Walker, 26, and Harrison Simpson, 22, contested every charge. 

Jurors at Teesside Crown Court returned verdicts on Tuesday, convicting Simpson of murder unanimously and Walker on an 11-1 majority, after deliberating close to seven hours.

Both were convicted of child cruelty, and Simpson was also found guilty of a sexual assault on Isabelle — a count on which Walker was acquitted.

Medical evidence, per LBC, showed 21 separate bones had been broken in the weeks preceding her collapse. 

Pathology work identified a fractured skull and injury to the brain itself — bleeding the court heard amounted to a catastrophic head injury. Expert witnesses attributed it to shaking combined with the child’s head striking a hard surface.

She was suspicious but didn’t leave him

The mother’s suspicions surfaced early in the couple’s short-lived relationship. She had questioned whether Simpson has pedophilic tendencies per the reports, and found his reluctance to spend time with her unless Isabelle was there unusual.

The doubt was serious enough that she even looked into whether his name sat on the Sex Offenders’ Register. It did not compel her, however, to leave him. On the morning Isabelle collapsed, Simpson was alone with her.

Less than a fortnight earlier, a fractured leg had taken Isabelle to a doctor’s surgery and on to hospital, with Walker attributing the injury to the child’s cot. She had let two weeks pass before getting the girl looked at, during which Isabelle was in pain and could not walk normally. Reservations among some staff did not stop her being sent home.

On the day of the collapse, Walker typed a query about her child bleeding into a search engine and smoked a cigarette rather than call an ambulance. Her stepfather got a call before the emergency services did, and she dialed 999 at his prompting. Crews arrived to find the girl at the bottom of the staircase with no pulse.

District Crown Prosecutor Kirstie Devine said Isabelle “would be alive today” but for the violence inflicted by the two people meant to care for her, and that neither sought medical help even once it was plain how ill she was. 

Isabelle’s relatives said in a statement that she “should have had her whole life ahead of her,” and that their lives will never be the same.

Ms Justice Norton confirmed (via Teesside Live) a murder conviction carries a mandatory life term, and said she would fix the minimum each defendant must serve.