Sarah Ngaba, 32, stopped to buy a lottery ticket after fracturing her seven-week-old daughter’s skull — then waited more than half an hour for a taxi before taking her to hospital.
On Friday, the mother from Telford, Shropshire, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 12 years and 154 days for the murder of baby Eliza. Trial judge Mrs Justice Brunner KC described the killing as “the culmination of increasingly hostile behaviour” and ruled that Eliza’s head was likely to have been struck against a wall.
“Sarah Ngaba stopped to buy a lottery ticket after fracturing her baby's skull, then delayed hospital; jailed for life with 12-year minimum.”
“The distribution of injuries shows this was not a momentary attack,” the judge told Ngaba as she stood in the dock at Birmingham Crown Court. “The trigger for you losing your temper is not clear. The result of that assault was immediately catastrophic.”
Ngaba accepted that she caused “dreadful, life-shortening and life-limiting” head injuries to Eliza, but denied murder, claiming she was instead guilty of infanticide. In May, a jury found her guilty of murder. She had previously been convicted of causing grievous bodily harm to the child after the assault in November 2019, leaving Eliza profoundly disabled.
London-born Eliza died aged two in August 2022 from a respiratory infection, having been left vulnerable by the assault. Sentencing Ngaba, Mrs Justice Brunner praised the dedication of Eliza’s “remarkable” foster parents, Laura and Gary Haynes.
“Theirs was a stable and caring household and they clearly brought much love and happiness into her life,” the judge said, having heard a statement from the foster parents saying they loved Eliza dearly and missed her “bright and sunny nature” every day.
Turning to Ngaba, the judge criticised her for booking a taxi to take Eliza to hospital, delaying medical help and failing to maximise her daughter’s chances of effective treatment. “It would have been obvious to you straight away that Eliza had serious injuries but you continued to act in a callous way. You deliberately delayed and you deliberately concealed Eliza’s terrible state. Instead you put your interests above hers.”
Gordon Aspden KC, addressing the court in mitigation, said Ngaba had joined the Anglican community while serving at HMP Foston Hall in Derbyshire, where the chaplain described her as… (the article text was cut off). The judge noted an unusual feature: Ngaba had already served six years and 211 days of her 14-year sentence for wounding, meaning that time was subtracted from a minimum term that would have been 19 years.