Girl killed 'because she woke up'

Amelia died two days before her fourth birthday

A father who suffocated his daughter told police that the little girl "wanted to come with daddy", Northampton Crown Court has heard.

Hospital radiographer Gavin Hall, 33, killed three-year-old Amelia as her mother and younger sister slept upstairs in their Northants home.

Mr Hall, of Irchester, denies murder but admits manslaughter, on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

He told police she would not have been killed had she not woken up.

The court heard that on 29 November last year Amelia was fed anti-depressant pills to make her drowsy.

In police interviews read to the jury, Mr Hall told officers that the girl had realised her mother and father were splitting up.

Open cuts

He said: "If she had not woken up and been crying she would never have been involved.

"She knows her mummy is leaving her daddy. I asked her, did she want to come with daddy or stay with mummy.

"I said 'are you going to come with me?' and she said 'yes, I want to come with you'."

Mr Hall added: "I thought I had told her that I was going to take her to heaven."

He sat and cuddled his daughter before smothering her with a rag soaked with the anaesthetic chemical medical chloroform, the court heard.

Mother Joanne found Amelia, known as Millie, under a duvet on the living room floor the following morning.

Mr Hall had tried to kill himself with chloroform and had opened cuts in his neck, thighs and arms.

The jury was told that in the months before the killing, Hall had discovered that his wife was having an affair.

The trial continues.