THE evil gran and aunt of a girl of seven who died with more than 50 injuries on her body were jailed for cruelty today.
Shanay Walker had a burn likely to have been caused by an iron and finally died of a head injury.
Aunt Kay-Ann Morris, 24 — granted custody when Shanay’s mum Leanne Walker, 21, became depressed — got eight years’ jail. Gran Juanila Smikle, 54 — Morris’s mother — received four years.
The young Nottingham girl was thrown against walls, had her hair pulled, was beaten with a hairbrush, made to run up and down the stairs, forced to eat food she hated and had clothes pushed into her mouth.
Justice Alistair MacDuff described her as a “small, vulnerable seven-year-old” whom Morris tried to “break her like a wild horse”.
He added: “Morris could not bear that she refused to be cowed.
“Your ill-treatment of that little girl was frequent and wicked and lasted over the two years when she was in your care. You hit, taunted and abused her in unimaginable ways.”
Chilling footage was released after the case showing the youngster going to a shop barefoot and in pyjamas to ask for a drink the day before she died last July.
Both women were cleared of Shanay’s murder.
Morris was also cleared of cruelty towards another child.
But Smikle was convicted of being cruel to three other kids, including making them sit in water and ice for so long they could barely stand afterwards. She was cleared of a further cruelty rap.
The judge told Smikle at Nottingham Crown Court: “I do not consider your culpability to be as great as that of your daughter, although your offending is made worse by the fact that in your case there were four victims.
“The offending also lasted over several years.”
Her death is now the subject of a serious case review by the Local Safeguarding Children Board.