A dad who killed his 14-year-old daughter by stabbing her in the heart while “play-fighting” was heard screaming 12 chilling words as her mum frantically called 999.
Simon Vickers, 50, was found guilty of stabbing his daughter Scarlett in the chest with an 11cm knife at their family home in Darlington, County Durham in July in 2024.
She died from rapid blood loss. Her father told a paramedic that Scarlett had lunged towards him as they were “play-fighting”, the Mirror reports.
Scarlett’s mum, Sarah Hall, made a frenzied call to 999 in which she said they were “messing about, having a fun-fight” when the accident struck. She added: “My partner threw something and he didn’t realise.” But in the background, Vickers can be heard screaming: “Scarlett, Scarlett, talk to me, Scarlett. Oh my God, she’s gone blue.”
Emergency services rushed to the family’s semi-detached home and found Scarlett collapsed on the kitchen floor. Vickers suggested that he swiped the knife without realising, after he attempted to “swing” a pair of kitchen tongs.
Vickers told the jury of a “theory” that Scarlett may then have accidentally come onto the knife after it “hit the side of the hot-plate and stuck out over the side of the counter.”
Following his conviction, offciers shared footage showing the dad being booked into police custody. He was heard telling officers: “I just want to know how my daughter’s doing. We were mucking about, playing in the kitchen, and for some reason this has gone really weird. We were mucking about. I can’t believe this. Please someone tell me. What’s going on? We are going on holiday to f*****g Gran Canaria in six weeks.
“F*****g hell. I don’t believe this is happening. We were cooking tea. Just mucking about in the kitchen. I don’t understand how this has happened. Honestly.” He added: “The police assume that I have held a knife and stabbed my daughter which is something that just wouldn’t happen. Why would I harm my daughter? If someone held a gun to my head and told me to stab my daughter, I would be shot.”
Prosecutors claimed Vickers must have stabbed his daughter “deliberately with the knife” as the wound as “too deep” to have been caused accidentally. Mark McKone, KC, prosecuting, told the dad during cross-examination: “I will have to suggest to you that you have not told the truth about how Scarlett was wounded.”
Vickers was visibly emotional he gave evidence, telling jurors he would never have hurt secondary school pupil, Scarlett, his only child with long-term partner Sarah Hall. Asked by his barrister Nicholas Lumley, KC, if he intended to cause her serious injury, Vickers told the jury: “No, never, never in this world. I would have given her my life.”
Vickers denied murdering Scarlett but a jury at Teeside Crown Court yesterday found him guilty by a majority that the 14-year-old died because of the injury he had inflicted upon her. He will be sentenced next month.
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