{"id":21929,"date":"2025-01-27T22:14:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T22:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/darlington-dad-guilty-of-murdering-daughter\/"},"modified":"2025-01-27T22:14:32","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T22:14:32","slug":"darlington-dad-guilty-of-murdering-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/darlington-dad-guilty-of-murdering-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Darlington dad guilty of murdering daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Scarlett Vickers died at her home in July after being stabbed in the chest<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A man who claimed his daughter died in a “freak accident” during a play-fight with a knife has been found guilty of her murder.<\/p>\n

Scarlett Vickers, 14, bled to death at her home in Darlington in July after suffering a 4in-deep (11cm) stab wound to her chest.<\/p>\n

Simon Vickers claimed he caused the fatal injury while they were “mucking about”, but a pathologist told Teesside Crown Court it was “practically impossible” for the wound to have been caused by a knife which had been thrown in the manner the defendant claimed.<\/p>\n

The jury rejected the 50-year-old’s explanation. He will be sentenced in February.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Simon Vickers was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The trial had heard Scarlett died at her home in Geneva Road after being stabbed in the kitchen on 5 July.<\/p>\n

Her parents were the only other people present.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘Mucking about’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Mr Vickers had told the court he and Scarlett’s mother, Sarah Hall, “would never harm” their daughter, adding: “She was our life, our purpose.”<\/p>\n

Her parents had said they were all “mucking about”, throwing grapes at each other in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Ms Hall had told police and paramedics she had got the knife out to cut garlic bread and placed them next to some tongs.<\/p>\n

Mr Vickers told the court he swiped a pair of tongs towards Scarlett which must have caught a knife, which he had not seen.<\/p>\n

Scarlett’s mother backed up Mr Vickers’ version of events, telling jurors she believed it was an accident<\/a> and her partner of 27 years would never harm their daughter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Police station video shows Simon Vickers telling police he and his daughter Scarlett were just “mucking about”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n
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The prosecution’s case relied on the pathologist’s conclusion Scarlett’s fatal injury must have been inflicted by a blade being firmly held<\/a> in Vickers’ hand.<\/p>\n

Forensic pathologist Jennifer Bolton told the court kitchen knives were not designed to be thrown and the blade would have had to strike at a 90-degree angle to pass through Scarlett’s pyjama top into her chest, otherwise it would have rebounded off.<\/p>\n

Vickers said Scarlett was a “normal” and “cheeky” teenager and “fantastic daughter” who was “good at most things she did”.<\/p>\n

He said he had drunk about four glasses of wine on the evening of 5 July while watching the football and all three were happy and in a good mood.<\/p>\n

His lawyers said Vickers was already serving a “life sentence” after Scarlett’s death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Scarlett died at her home in Geneva Road, Darlington<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Jurors spent more than 13 hours deliberating their verdict before reaching a majority agreement, with 10 finding Vickers guilty of murder.<\/p>\n

He was remanded in custody to be sentenced on 10 February.<\/p>\n

Senior Crown Prosecutor with CPS North East Anna Barker said Mr Vickers’ account had been “wholly inconsistent with the forensic evidence” in the case.<\/p>\n

Det Supt Craig Rudd of Durham Police said Scarlett had had “her whole life ahead of her” but it was “cruelly cut short by a man who was meant to protect her”.<\/p>\n

He added: “We may never know why or what caused Simon Vickers to do what he did that night.<\/p>\n

“Sadly, today’s verdict will not bring Scarlett back, but he will now face the consequences of his actions.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Family handout Scarlett Vickers died at her home in July after being stabbed in the chest A man who claimed his daughter died in a “freak accident” during a play-fight with a knife has been found guilty of her murder. Scarlett Vickers, 14, bled to death at her home in Darlington in July after suffering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[291,8244,324,1217,1751],"class_list":["post-21929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk","tag-dad","tag-darlington","tag-daughter","tag-guilty","tag-murdering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21931,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21929\/revisions\/21931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}