The mum of murdered toddler Star Hobson has told her family that her former lover is a monster, and now realises her little girl would still be alive if they hadn't met.
Frankie Smith was jailed for eight-years in December for causing or allowing the toddler’s death, which today Court of Appeal judges have increased to 12 years.
The young mum was jailed for her role in the death of her 16-month-old daughter, who was killed by Smith’s former partner Savannah Brockhill.
Bouncer and security guard, Brockhill, 28, received a minimum sentence of 25 years for murder.
But Court of Appeal judges ruled today that the sentence handed to the baby's mum, 20-year-old Smith, was "unduly lenient" and would be increased by four years.
After hearing the news, her grandfather David Fawcett, who visits Frankie regularly at New Hall in Wakefield, told The Mirror: “Frankie calls her ‘The Monster’ too. It's dawned on her what’s happened now.
"She has pictures of Star all over her cell and misses her every day. She did not go to her funeral and has not been to her final resting place so finds it hard to accept she’s gone.
“We know people have different opinions on this. But one thing we all agree on is that if Frankie had never met this monster none of this would ever have happened."
Star died after she was taken to hospital in September 2020, having suffered “utterly catastrophic” and “unsurvivable” injuries at Brockhill’s hands.
During the trial, jurors heard Smith’s family and friends raised the alarm with social services about bruising they saw on the little girl in the months before she died.
But in each case Brockhill, a bouncer and Smith, both from Keighley, managed to convince social workers that marks on Star were accidental or that the complaints were made maliciously by people against their relationship.
David pointed out his granddaughter suffered domestic abuse at Savannah's hands, and added: "I begged Frankie to leave her but she was brainwashed by her."
Outside court he said: “We are all a bit upset, we were just hoping it would stay as it is.”
He said Frankie has young relatives who are missing her and added: “They say all the time ‘When can we see Frankie?’ It’s just so heartbreaking. They can’t see her in prison. I go and see her but that’s it really.
“There will be family members who will be happy about this - everyone has their opinion. But Frankie will struggle with that news, she has been struggling already.
“She’s lost a couple of friends who got moved to an open prison in York and she was upset about that, it was without warning then she had one friend left. But she was told at the weekend that she’s being moved. She said ‘I’ve got no friends left now.’"
Dame Victoria Sharp, President of the Queen’s Bench Division, who chaired the appeal hearing, said: “The circumstances of Star’s treatment at the hands of both of them over a prolonged period of time are harrowing and deeply disturbing.”
She added that Smith showed a “consistent pattern of cruelty” towards Star in the months before her death.
Dame Victoria said Smith’s offence was aggravated by her failure to seek medical help for Star at that time and by the “prolonged suffering” of her daughter.
She said: “This was very serious offending of its kind with many culpability factors and aggravating features...
“There was little if anything to be said in mitigation. In our judgement no lesser sentence than 12 years’ custody would meet the justice of this case.”
The judge said that Star was ‘particularly vulnerable due to her very young age’, and that “self-evidently, Miss Smith was in a position of trust”.
The maximum sentence for Smith’s offence, allowing the death of a child, was 14 years imprisonment.
