Ana Livia Lopes da Silva mother and stepfather sentenced total of 61 years jail for beating three-year-old daughter and failing to get her medical attention before dying after wetting her bed.
A Brazilian teen mother who failed to get medical help for her three-year-old daughter upon her being beaten by her stepfather for wetting her bed has been jailed.
Christopher Anthony Tavares Coelho, 27, and Leticia Lopes Fonseca, 19, were sentenced to a total of 61 years in prison after the killing of the child in Pocos de Caldas, Brazil.
Coelho was sentenced to 32 years, one month and 20 days in prison for homicide.
Fonseca was sentenced to 29 years, two months and 23 days in prison for the same charge, for failing to help her daughter after the beating.
The couple were sentenced following a jury delivered a guilty verdict after 17 hours of deliberations in the early hours of March 5.
Beaten child was only taken to hospital after discovered by relatives
Fonseca’s daughter, Ana Livia Lopes da Silva was subjected to a series of violent beatings by her stepfather after she wet the bed in June 2018.
The last and most violent beating killed her after it caused her to have a suspected seizure.
Brazilian press reported the day after the beating, Ana spent the day with her mother who did not provide her with any help, despite her complaining of pain.
Ana was only taken to hospital in the late afternoon when she was found by her aunt and grandmother, unconscious, having difficulty breathing, and with swelling and bruises on her body.
The two women took Ana to the Margarita Moralles Hospital, just 100m from the girl’s home.
Due to the severity of her injuries, the little girl was transferred to Santa Casa de Poços de Caldas, where she died.
‘She arrived in a very serious condition, with craniocerebral haemorrhage and broken ribs,’ the prosecutor at the trial said.
Bear burden of guilt
‘And the mother spent the whole day watching her daughter’s suffering.’
Fonseca’s public defender Karla Felisberto said her client was remorseful for her daughter’s death.
‘Regarding the conviction, she was resigned and said that no jail sentence will be greater than the guilt she will bear,’ she said.
The preschool that Ana Livia had attended had previously reported the couple to the authorities for earlier maltreatment in May 2018.
The couple had been in preventive detention since their arrest.
