Ainlee's mum 'telling pack of lies'

The mother charged with killing toddler Ainlee Walker was today accused of telling "a pack of lies" to the Old Bailey.

Leanne Labonte, 20, had told the court she did not see two-year-old Ainlee in the week before she was found lifeless after being starved and tortured.

She blamed her partner Dennis Henry, 39, for the 64 injuries, including cigarette burns, on the child's emaciated body.

Labonte said she had been in fear of Henry and broke down as she added: "I let her down. I failed to protect her."

But Mahmud Aslan, defending Henry, told her: "I suggest you are telling this court a pack of lies and it's simply an act you are putting on."

Earlier Labonte said Henry, who sometimes used the name Walker, had insisted on feeding, bathing and caring for Ainlee out of her sight. Labonte also told the Old Bailey she had not seen the baby naked for five months but had never worried about her health.

She said: "I never asked if she was well, I was not worried about her, Dennis kept Ainlee all to himself."

Nevertheless, she said she suspected Henry of sexually abusing the baby, just as she had been as a child, but was too scared to report her fears. Yet eight weeks after the child's death Labonte wrote to Henry in prison saying she wanted to marry him, the court heard.

The letter was accompanied by a lock of hair that she had torn from her head.

Labonte insisted that the offer of marriage came before the report on Ainlee's injuries and from that moment she "hated his guts". On the day Ainlee died, Labonte and Henry had left her at home alone in their squalid Plaistow flat to go to the Jobcentre.

On their return Henry ran a bath for the baby then called out to say that there was "something wrong" with Ainlee, said Labonte.

She said she took Ainlee, who was wrapped in a towel, and said to Henry: "What are all these marks on the baby?" Labonte told the court: "I was shocked but didn't spend time thinking about it just got on with attempts to resuscitate her."

At this point Henry slumped forward in the dock with his head in his hands. Ainlee was pronounced dead at Newham General Hospital. The couple have two other young children.

The court has heard a doctor describe the catalogue of injuries suffered by Ainlee as "the grossest of gross abuse".

The child had starved for at least two days and signs of her terminal decline would have been "patently obvious". Labonte and Henry plead not guilty to manslaughter and cruelty.

The case continues.