A baby who was murdered by her mother's partner in Radcliffe was unlawfully killed, an inquest has ruled today. Orianna Crilly-Cifrova, aged only 13 months, was killed by Jamie Chadwick in October 2019.
Chadwick — under strict orders not to have contact with children — ‘projected’ the baby ‘against a hard surface’, pathologist Dr Charles Wilson said. At the time, Orianna’s mother — Chelsea Crilly, from Atherton — was out of the property.
A trial had heard that when she returned, Orianna was 'almost lifeless' and had suffered two 'very severe blows' to her skull. Chadwick was sentenced to life in prison, to serve a minimum of 18 years, in March 2020.
Following a three-week inquest, today (April 14), coroner Catherine McKenna ruled that Orianna died from unlawful killing. Throughout the inquiry into how Orianna came to her death, numerous social workers gave evidence to the coroner. One social worker, Michael Peacock, apologised for inaccurately recording a non-contact order.
Throughout the period that social workers dealt with Chelsea, they told her that she could not allow new partner Chadwick to have contact with Orianna under any circumstances. However, Mr Peacock inaccurately recorded that Chadwick was not to have ‘unsupervised contact’ with the baby — but denied ever saying this to Chelsea.
“This was my mistake. This was the mistake I have thought about every single day since I heard about [Orianna’s murder],” he told the hearing in Rochdale. “I opened up the referrals from everyone [when writing my assessment]. I was typing it up and it said ‘no unsupervised contact’ on the GMP referral.”
Despite this admission, Ms McKenna decided not to engage Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights — which protects citizens’ right to life from state agencies. In effect, engaging this article would mean public sector bodies such as Wigan Council could have been held accountable for failing to protect Orianna sufficiently.
That decision was taken because Ms McKenna found that people acting within the state system had not followed procedure correctly, but it was not a failing of the system itself. One such failing was the decision by social services not to call a strategy meeting in August 2019, weeks before Orianna’s murder, to formulate a plan on how to deal with suspicions that Chadwick was seeing the baby — despite the advice not to as he had been accused of harming another baby in the past.
However, Ms McKenna added that even if such a meeting had taken place, it would have had a limited impact. “Even if a plan was in place, Chelsea would have retained care of Orianna,” she said.
“She did not believe allegations against [Chadwick], I cannot find it would have led to a cessation of contact. Even when Orianna was undergoing neuro-surgery [following the attack] she could not believe the offender would cause her harm.”
On concluding the hearing, the coroner said: “Chelsea, you are the person most deeply affected by her death. You have shown great courage attending this inquest. You have conducted yourself with remarkable dignity.
“Ultimately, the responsibility comes with the offender. He and no-one else took her life. I hope you can draw comfort from Orianna’s memory.”
She added: “I record she [Orianna] died in Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital at 6:19pm on October 17, 2019 as a result of catastrophic head injuries she sustained when she was assaulted at a flat in Radcliffe between 11:15am and 12:40pm on October 16. I record unlawful killing."
