A woman has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 17 years for murdering the one-year-old baby she was in the process of adopting, after failing to disclose mental health problems to the adoption panel.
Katie Tidmarsh, 39, was convicted of murdering Ruby Thompson, who sustained catastrophic brain damage and died in hospital in August 2012.
The infant had been living with Tidmarsh and her husband at their home in Leicester for five months after they were approved to adopt her.
Handing Tidmarsh a life sentence on Friday, Mr Justice Wall said the defendant’s actions “constituted a gross breach of trust”.
“You abused her that morning and then have lied to cover up what you did. Your victim was a defenceless young child and you, her carer,” he said. “You have steadfastly maintained that nothing happened to Ruby on the morning of her collapse bar her eyes rolling into the back of her head and her falling backwards on to the rug. The experts all agreed that this would not account for the injuries sustained by Ruby.”
Medical experts concluded the child had probably been shaken violently and attacked with a hard object which had broken her skull. Further examinations revealed she had sustained a broken arm two weeks before she died.
The trial at Leicester crown court heard that Tidmarsh had been to see her GP for “severe anxiety and panic attacks”, had been prescribed antidepressants and had been signed off work for four weeks, but she did not disclose any of this to the adoption panel.
“You deliberately covered up your mental health difficulties. Those actions gave the social workers confidence to entrust Ruby to your care,” said Wall, describing her as an “educated and intelligent woman”.
“Had you approached the adoption process openly and honestly Ruby might have been alive today.”
He said Ruby was a “happy and contented child who brought great pleasure to those who knew her”, and both her foster carers and biological parents were deeply affected by her death.
Wall deducted 12 months from Tidmarsh’s sentence due to the length of time it had taken for the court case to proceed.
“The evidence is that you were able to get on with your life confident that your past would not catch up with you,” he told her. “This delay has allowed you to carry on with your life while relatively young for 10 years or more when you ought to have been in prison.”
Leicestershire police submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service in December 2013 to consider a charge for murder but in February 2014 they decided not to proceed.
An inquest into Ruby’s death concluded she died from a head injury but the cause was not established and it was not until Tidmarsh became subject to separate family court proceedings in 2017 that the case was reopened. She was charged with murder in 2022.
