Carers jailed to life in London for murder of eight-year-old girl

The Old Bailey criminal court heard harrowing accounts of the life of the little girl in the care of Marie Therese Kouao, 44, and boyfriend Carl Manning, a 28-year-old bus driver of Tottenham, north London. The guilty verdict was delivered by a majority of 10 to two.

Anna died of hypothermia and neglect in February 2000 while in their care a year after she was brought to London by her great aunt Kouao from their home in Ivory Coast.

Kouao, who denied the murder charges, had claimed the child had suffered from "witchcraft".

She was tied up in a black plastic bag and made to sleep in a bath for months. She was beaten with a variety of weapons, including a bicycle chain and wire coat hanger.

The child was returned to the couple's care shortly before her deaths by the social services after she had been taken to hospital with multiple injuries.

The frail child began to stoop like an old woman, and slowly starved because she was fed left-over scraps "like a dog".

Kouao and her Manning stood impassive as the guilty verdicts were delivered on the fifth day of deliberations. Both defendants were also found guilty of child cruelty.

Judge Richard Hawkins said lessons had to be learned "about the failure of social services and police in this case".

"What Anna endured was truly unimaginable," Hawkins said. "She died at both your hands, a lonely drawn out death. I pass the only sentence I am entitled to pass, and that is life imprisonment."

He gave Kouao a 10-year concurrent sentence for child cruelty. Manning was given eight years for child cruelty to run concurrently.

(dpa)