A TODDLER was battered to death by a 15-year-old babysitter, a court was told.

Demi Leigh Mahon, aged two, had 68 different areas of injury to her body.

It is alleged that the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, kicked, punched and bit the child while looking after her on his own. The boy denies murder.

Howard Bentham, prosecuting, told Manchester Crown Court that Demi died two days after the attack at a flat in Eccles last year.

Mr Bentham said of the boy: "We say he is guilty of murder. The defence say if you look into his mind you will find someone that was suffering from an abnormality of mind and that abnormality substantially impaired his responsibility."

The court was told that on the day Demi was attacked, her mother went shopping leaving the child with the accused. She had left Demi with the boy before.

Mr Bentham said: "There had been no problem - on this occasion she was fatally wrong."

He said the boy had told a series of lies in order to minimise responsibility for what he had done. He claimed Demi had hit her head on a radiator and on an ashtray.

"We say he knew what he had done and that he was in possession of his faculties."

Wept

Demi's mother returned to the flat at around 4pm to find her daughter very badly inured.

Mr Bentham said: "When her small body was examined by pathologist Dr Naomi Carter there were 68 sites of injury on that small body. We say every one was caused by this young man.

"They were all over her body - many to the head and face."

Dr Carter drew the conclusion that Demi had been punched repeatedly in the face.

The back of the head had been kicked or punched or banged against something hard.

Demi's mother wept as she told he court how she had found her daughter badly injured when she returned to the flat after going out to collect child benefit.

Ann Marie McDonald, known as Cindy, said Demi could not breathe properly and when she picked her up from a bed her head flopped back, as she tried to wake her up.

Pointing at the boy, who was sat in court, next to the defence barristers, and not in the dock, she said: "I asked him over there 'why didn't you get an ambulance.'

"He said 'I've not done anything' He said 'I picked her up and might have hurt her - and then she fell in the park'."

Pointing again at the boy she said: "I am willing to take a lie detector test - he did that to my baby".

Mr Bentham added: "We say whatever mental problems he may have he knew what he was doing and he knew the consequences of what he was doing."

Proceeding