Boozed-up dad batters baby daughter (Addiscombe, England, United Kingdom)

Love the English press! No mealy mouths here! Dad LAWRENCE NEELY was "a boozed-up brute who battered his baby daughter and left her just 15 minutes from death." Doesn't sound like Mom, who had a bit of vodka herself, did much, if anything, to intervene. But intervention isn't always possible with these guys either--a point the general public and the press seems to forget. Mom gets 2 years of community service for not being strong or brave or big enough to stop him. Dad gets only 44 months in prison for actually committing the deed.

Addiscombe dad jailed for battering baby daughter and leaving her minutes from death
Friday, August 07, 2009, 13:04
By Jolene Hill

A boozed-up brute who battered his baby daughter and left her just 15 minutes from death was jailed today (Friday) for 44 months.

Lawrence Neeley of Lower Addiscombe Road, Addiscombe, beat the two-week baby to within an inch of its life while the callous mother, delayed calling an ambulance to give both of them time to cover up what had happened.

Neeley, 34, appeared for sentence at Guildford Crown Court on Friday after being convicted by a jury of wilful cruelty to a child.

Judge Peter Moss said that the child looked as if she had been violently shaken.

He added: "These were life-threatening injuries. Your actions will affect the child for the rest of her life."

Both parents had been drinking from a bottle of vodka the night the child was critically injured at their home at the time in Esher on March 21 last year.

After she was rushed to Kingston Hospital by paramedics, finally called by the couple, a head scan showed she was suffering from bleeding between the brain and the skull.

Judge Moss told Friday's sentencing that not only was there evidence of violent shaking but there was also evidence the baby's head had been slammed against a firm surface.

During the trial it was disclosed that the desperately ill infant was covered with bruises all the way down her front and her liver was severely damaged while her lungs were filling up with blood.

Defence counsel Rebecca Poulet said Neeley, originally from Liverpool, had a shocking childhood scarred by violence and abuse.

She said that he had been locked in a room by his parents and when he was 21 he had witnessed his grandmother's grisly suicide.

"She set herself on fire in front of him," said Ms Poulet.

The child's mother, 35, who was tried alongside him but cannot be named for legal reasons, was earlier sentenced to a two-year community order with supervision.