Kaylani Kalanzi, aged three months, was on a child protection plan and was admitted to hospital on 8 July 2024 after being violently shaken. She sustained catastrophic brain injuries, a broken leg and ribs, and died 15 days later. Her parents, Herbert Kalanzi and Nazli Merthoca, deny murder and causing or allowing her death. Prosecutors say the couple were in a mutually abusive relationship with drug use, leaving Kaylani vulnerable. In the weeks before her death she had an eye injury with conflicting accounts, and on the night of 8 July both parents' accounts differ about who cared for her.
Kaylani Kalanzi was on a child protection plan when she was admitted to hospital on 8 July 2024 having been violently shaken, jurors were told. She suffered catastrophic brain injuries as well as a broken leg and ribs, and died 15 days later. Kaylani's parents Herbert Kalanzi, 35, and Nazli Merthoca, 24, from East Ham, east London, deny murder and causing or allowing her death.
Opening their Old Bailey trial, prosecutor Zoe Johnson KC said the defendants were in a "mutually abusive relationship", with Ms Merthoca using drugs. As a result, Kaylani was vulnerable to her parents' inability to put her first and protect her from harm, jurors were told. Ms Johnson said that both of them knew the other "posed a real risk" to Kaylani. As the couple's relationship "spiralled out of control", their baby was "caught up in the middle of it", the prosecutor told jurors.
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