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Soldier suffering from PTSD jailed for killing baby daughter (20 January 2014)

Date: 20/01/2014
Duncan Lewis, Personal Injury Solicitors, Soldier suffering from PTSD jailed for killing baby daughter

A court has heard how the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) played a part in 25-year-old Afghanistan veteran Liam Culverhouse inflicting serious injuries on his baby daughter because he could not cope with her crying.

Culverhouse was jailed at Northampton Crown Court on Thursday (16/01/14), after admitting at a previous hearing causing or allowing the death of his daughter.

The soldier had served in the Grenadier Guards in Afghanistan, where he witnessed seeing five colleagues shot dead – and cheated death himself by lying still and pretending to be dead, the Mail online reports.

Culverhouse lost his right eye after being shot six times after a rogue Afghani policeman sprayed a checkpoint at Helmand province with bullets in November 2009.

Culverhouse was referred for anger management therapy after the Helmand attack but had stopped attending sessions by the time he viciously assaulted his daughter.

He had told neighbours and his family that he could not cope with a crying child a week before he attacked his daughter – and nine days before giving evidence at the Helmand massacre inquiry.

Culverhouse was living with his daughter Khloe and her mother Claire Abrams, 25, at their home in Northampton at the time of the attack. The court heard that the relationship between Culverhouse and the mother of his child was “on-off”.

Khloe was left with severe brain injury and multiple fractures to her skull after Culverhouse attacked her. She was cared for at the Rainbow Children’s Hospice in Loughborough until she died from pneumonia 17 months after the attack. The court was told that Khloe had been attacked on at least four occasions. Culverhouse was arrested for causing grievous bodily harm.

Sentencing Culverhouse at Northampton Crown Court, Mr Justice Baker said that it was clear that the effects of serving in Helmand province and resulting PTSD had contributed to Culverhouse’s attack on his baby daughter. Culverhouse was medically discharged from the Army in April 2013.

He admitted to the court that he experienced problems controlling his temper – and conceded that by failing to attend anger management sessions he had failed to “alleviate the risk” of causing harm to his daughter.

Mr Justice Baker said:

“No one who has understood what happened to you in November 2009 while serving as a member of the British Army in Afghanistan can have anything but profound sympathy for the effect which it had upon you.

“Not only will you have to live with the physical symptoms – including blindness in your right eye – but it is clear that the trauma of that and of witnessing the death of a number of your fellow soldiers has caused you to suffer from significant psychological damage.”

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