Mother WAS to blame for death of toddler - but prosecutors fail to act despite judge's ruling

Prosecutors refuse to press charges, despite family court judge ruling

Summer Rogers-Ratcliffe, aged 21 months, had suffered head injuries

Judge said injuries were 'on balance of probabilities' caused by mother

But CPS will not press charges against Victoria Rogers



Catastrophic: Summer with her mother Victoria Rogers

The mother of a toddler left dying in her cot was to blame for the child’s death, a judge has ruled.

A previously unseen document stated that on the balance of probabilities Victoria Rogers lost her self-control and caused catastrophic injuries to her child.

Despite the damning judgment the Crown Prosecution Service has refused to press charges because of ‘insufficient evidence’ to prove who was to blame.

Last week a coroner said that Summer Rogers-Ratcliffe, aged 21 months, was found with catastrophic head injuries and ruled that she was unlawfully killed by either her mother or stepfather.

Prior to the inquest a judgment had been made by a family court judge concerning who was culpable for the death.

The judgment at Teesside County Court – which attributed blame to Miss Rogers – was seen for the first time yesterday after this newspaper helped overturn a ruling which prohibited its publication.

Summer’s grandfather James Ratcliffe told the Daily Mail that with the judgment in the public domain he would go on with his 25-year-old son Joss – Summer’s father – to fight for justice.

Mr Ratcliffe, 44, along with 2,400 people who have signed a petition, urged the CPS to reconsider the decision not to prosecute anyone. He said: ‘I am flabbergasted to think that in 2014 an inquest found Summer was killed but no one has yet been made accountable.

She didn’t just die. She was hit and no one has been prosecuted. It is outrageous.

‘It is fantastic news that the family court ruling is now in the public domain. It will open up a lot of areas to be pursued and hopefully we can go on to get justice. We want to move forward to get someone accountable for Summer’s murder.’

Toddler Summer Ratcliffe from Dewsbury with her father Joss Ratcliffe

Summer, whose parents split up when she was three months old, was taken to hospital after being found unconscious in her cot at around 8.30am on Monday February 27, 2012.

She had a severely swollen brain, which was bruised and bleeding, and died hours later. A post-mortem examination revealed she had suffered a ‘blunt force trauma’ to her head.

Ancillary nurse Miss Rogers, 27, Summer’s stepfather Craig Sharp, 34, and grandmother Susan Rogers, 58, were arrested seven months later as they were the only people in the house in the time frame of the murder.

The toddler, pictured with her mother, had a severely swollen brain, which was bruised and bleeding

All three insisted they had not touched the girl and did not know how she suffered the injuries.

In the judgment published yesterday, it was said Summer had a tantrum after returning from her grandmother’s house on the day before she was found dying.

In evidence, Miss Rogers said she had told her daughter: ‘I’m sick of you coming home like this.’ Mr Sharp claimed she told her daughter something to the effect of ‘I can’t stand you any more’.

The judgment read: ‘I... have no doubt that the mother was acutely distressed by Summer’s tantrum. I am satisfied that the mother is an emotionally fragile person who would have been deeply upset by the episode which followed Summer’s return home on the Sunday.

‘The evidence does not, in my judgment, support the conclusion that anything was likely to have happened which would have caused Craig S (stepfather) to lose his self-control in the two hours or so between the mother leaving home and Mrs R arriving.

‘The evidence does support, in my judgment, the conclusion that something happened during the course of that night which caused the mother to lose her self-control.

‘However hard the decision, having regard to the cumulative effect of all the evidence and, in particular, the matters referred to above, I have come to the clear conclusion that, on the balance of probabilities, the evidence establishes that the injuries sustained by Summer were caused by her mother.’

Miss Rogers told police she and Mr Sharp went to bed at around 9pm on the Sunday at their home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. She said she kissed her daughter, who seemed fine, before leaving for work at 6am.

Mr Sharp said he woke at 6.30am and checked on Summer by standing at her bedroom door before leaving for work as soon as Mrs Rogers walked in.

At the Bradford inquest, coroner Oliver Longstaff effectively cleared Mrs Rogers of blame but did not single out either the mother or stepfather as the likely killer. Mr Sharp and the CPS declined to comment yesterday.