Father jailed for killing eight years after injuring baby

A father has been jailed for two years for killing his daughter, who died nearly eight years after being injured as a baby.

Paul Slattery, 33, of Dunfermline, Fife, had previously admitted the manslaughter of Caitlin Wetton, seven.

She died in hospital in July 2010, as a result of injuries sustained at her home in Glenthorne Avenue, Cheslyn Hay, near Walsall, in 2002.

Police said he was jailed for 30 months in 2004 for harming Caitlin in 2002.

Staffordshire Police said that following her death, the attorney general gave consent for Slattery to be charged with Caitlin's manslaughter.

It said that her original injuries had original injuries had "left her with severe brain damage."

Slattery was living in Fife when he was re-arrested.

Det Sgt Victoria Downing, from Staffordshire Police's protecting vulnerable people department, said: "Caitlin's life was severely limited by her injuries from which she never recovered.

"A post-mortem examination clearly showed that Caitlin's death was directly caused by the assault in 2002.

"Prosecutions of this nature are rare and we worked closely with the Crown Prosecution Service to seek consent for Slattery to be re-arrested following Caitlin's death."

David Rouse, senior Crown Prosecutor from the West Midlands Crown Prosecution Service Complex Casework, said that the sentence reflected the fact that Caitlin died "some years" after she was injured.

He also said that she was injured so severely that the "quality of her life was devastated as a result".