Mother guilty of killing three-month-old daughter using hairdryer

Courtney Gartshore, 28, had denied the culpable homicide of three-month-old Dahlia-Rose in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, in September 2023.

She was found guilty by a jury on the seventh day of the trial at the High Court in Aberdeen.

Gartshore will be sentenced next month and was remanded into custody today.

The charges stated that the injuries Dahlia-Rose suffered came from the appliance applied to her while she was in the sole care of her mother.

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The trial also heard that Gartshore had consumed alcohol before her daughter's death.

Dahlia-Rose suffered burns to 18% of the surface area of her body - and that her DNA was found on a hairdryer.

The jury was played a recording of Gartshore making a 999 call in which she told an operator that her child had "gone purple" while she slept.

Expert witness Dr Timothy Burge, a burns specialist, told the court that the heat injuries did not cause the baby's death.

He did, however, caveat that the "could have been that she was already dead".