Star Hobson's mum has sentence raised to 12 years

Frankie Smith, Star Hobson’s mum, has had her eight-year jail term for her toddler’s death increased to 12 years today by Court of Appeal judges.

Frankie Smith, the mother of murdered toddler, Star
West Yorkshire Police

Smith's daughter was murdered at just 16 months old.

Star died in hospital having suffered “utterly catastrophic” and “unsurvivable” injuries inflicted by Smith’s former partner Savannah Brockhill.

Brockhill was found guilty of the murder and was handed a life term with a minimum of 25 years in prison following a trial at Bradford Crown Court.

Smith was also found guilty of causing or allowing Star’s death and received an eight-year term which was described as “unduly lenient” by Attorney General Suella Braverman.

Ms Braverman announced in January that she would be referring Smith’s sentence to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that her original sentence was too forgiving.

Today, Dame Victoria Sharp, sitting with Mr Justice Sweeney and Mr Justice Jeremy Baker, found that the sentencing judge was wrong to reduce Smith’s sentence from the starting point based on mitigation, including of her losing her daughter.

“On the facts of this case, where Miss Smith had treated Star with such cruelty… the judge was wrong to identify this as a mitigating feature and then give it the weight she did,” Dame Victoria said.

“There was little, if any, to be said in mitigation...In our judgment no less a sentence than 12 years would meet the justice of this case,” she added.

The judge said that Star was “particularly vulnerable due to her very young age”, and that “self-evidently, Miss Smith was in a position of trust”.