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Jury shown video
The trial of a mum from the West Midlands who's accused of starving her 7-year-old daughter to death has been shown a video of where the little girl lived.
Birmingham Crown Court was told that Khyra Ishaq died of an infection after being starved over a period of weeks or possibly even months.
Junaid Abuhamza and 34-year-old Angela Gordon, both deny murdering Khyra in May last year although he has pleaded guilty to five separate charges of child cruelty.
Opening the case against Angela Gordon and Junaid Abuhamza, prosecutor Timothy
Raggatt, QC, said Khyra had been starved to a point that was almost unique in the experience of British medical staff.
"The actual means or process which resulted in (Khyra's death) was brought about by a series of actions that were in effect the deliberate and calculated starvation of that little girl over a period, certainly of weeks, and very possibly months,'' he said.
Mr Raggatt told the jury: "It is going to be very important for you and for all of us to remain as dispassionate as we possibly can during the course of this case.''
He told the jury they would be shown a photograph of Khyra when she was developing normally and another photograph of her taken shortly after her death.
"The purpose of that will not be to shock you. There is a clear and proper purpose to do that and it's this - they show as clearly as we possibly can the reality of what happened here.''
Mr Raggatt, who suggested the jury may have seen such photographs in the context of famine in Africa, went on: "The cruelty and maltreatment of that little girl, you may well come to think, was both ultimately calculated and obviously deliberate.''
The prosecution claim that Gordon and Abuhamza had a duty in law to care for Khyra, but had betrayed that duty in every possible sense, while also maltreating five other children in their control.




