Father who shook baby daughter with 'excessive and severe' force found guilty of murder
3 July 2025, 15:54 | Updated: 3 July 2025, 17:42
A father who left his baby daughter with brain and bone injuries after excessively shaking her has been found guilty of murder.
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Thomas Holford, 25, who is from Ramsgate, has been found guilty of murdering his daughter Everleigh Stroud, who died after “excessive and severe” shaking led to brain and bone injuries when she was just five weeks old.
Everleigh was taken to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in Margate, Kent, when her grandmother reported she was "only just" breathing on the morning of April 21 2021.
At the time his baby was rushed to hospital, Holford showed "little emotion" and continued to download and play games on his phone, jurors heard.
He was found unanimously guilty of murder and actual bodily harm of his daughter by a Canterbury Crown Court jury.
As well as suffering with brain injuries that left her in a vegetative state, Everleigh also had bruising to her face, atrophy to her eyes leading to her going blind and injuries to her anus.
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She spent more than a year in a vegetative state before she died at 14 months on May 27 2022.
Prosecuting, Eloise Marshall KC said: "On the night of April 20 into the early morning of April 21 2021, when Everleigh was just over five weeks old, she suffered catastrophic injuries which caused substantial brain damage, and that resulted in her death just over a year later.
"There is no dispute as to how Everleigh came to suffer those injuries, they were inflicted by her father, Thomas Holford."
While giving evidence, Holford told jurors he had at least five joints on April 20 2021, before being left in charge of Everleigh that evening.
When police arrived at his address in Wallwood Road, Ramsgate, where Holford, then 20, lived with his then 16-year-old girlfriend and her parents, they discovered a cannabis grinder and joint butts next to a milk bottle in his bedroom.
Holford, who admitted manslaughter of Everleigh last year, will be sentenced for murder and actual bodily harm on July 4.
