Star Hobson was, in many ways, typically childish.
Born in May 2019 in a large family, she was adored and showered with love and tenderness.
Relatives, near and far, pampered little Star.
“I couldn't wait to get home from work to see her. I would rush home thinking, 'little Star will be home when we get back,'" says her great-grandfather, David Fawcett.
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He recalls the happy times he spent with the toddler as she grew up at his home in Baildon, West Yorkshire.
“Every time she heard music, that would be it. Her head would start moving and she would dance in front of the TV," he says.
In a short 16 months, Starr Hobson lived a life in two halves - the first filled with the warmth of sincere love, and the second filled with cold relations and bullying.
They noticed something was happening.
Starr Hobson's family says they tried to alert the authorities.
So how did a little girl who was adored by so many end up dead after months of physical and emotional abuse?
Stara's earlier, happier life was filled with love.
Pictures posted on social media show a cheerful, smiling girl with blue eyes and short, thick brown hair.
In one family photo, she is surrounded by gift bags, wearing a pink dress and a decorative plastic tiara.
To those who loved her, Star was a little princess.
"If you could somehow bottle those times... I'd love to let them out over and over again, because it was absolutely awesome," says David.
But the happy baby who melted the hearts of all who met her will experience another, darker side of life.
Gradually isolated and hidden from the loving gaze of devoted family members, she will be increasingly mistreated at the hands of the two people who should care about her the most: her mother, Frankie Smith, and her partner, Savannah Brockhill.
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On the day of Stara's death in September 2020, she was found lifeless and pale in the couple's flat in Keighley, West Yorkshire, and was pronounced dead in hospital.
An autopsy found signs of catastrophic, fatal injuries.
Their most likely source: punching, kicking or trampling.
This act of violence was not isolated.
Further investigation revealed a number of other serious injuries on her tiny body, the most significant being a skull fracture and a chin fracture caused by "forcible twisting".
Relatives say that she persistently pointed out this problem.
The case was reported to the social service five times.
But that wasn't enough to save the girl from her mother and her domineering, controlling partner.
The star was six months old when Frankie Smith broke up with the child's father, Jordan Hobson, in November 2019.
A month later, she met Savannah Brockhill at a pub, where she worked as a door security guard.
The two began a stormy relationship full of arguments and moments of domestic violence.
David Fawcett, Frankie Smith's grandfather, says her family noticed a change in her relationship with Starr after she met Brockhill.
Soon, the "dominant and controlling" bouncer and caretaker "got into Frankie's head", after which the young mother began to fear her partner.
It seems that it had an effect on the little girl as well.
Nanny Star Hobson felt that she had changed and "not for the better".
In January 2020, she was the first to contact social services in Bradford.
In February 2020, a tumultuous relationship and caring for a young child began to take its toll on Frankie Smith and she asked her grandmother, Anita Smith, to help her with the child.
David says he and Anita, his partner of the past 27 years, took in Star and found her thin, sad and depressed.
"I have never seen a depressed baby before. She was staring at the floor and Anita said, 'Oh, just look at her, poor little Star. It will never be the same," he says.
But David says that Star's stay with her great-grandparents led to an almost immediate change in her.
"In just two or three days, she revived and became absolutely fantastic again. Magic," he says.
Star stayed with David and Anita for 11 weeks, until the end of April 2020.
David says the moment Star returned to her mother was "when everything changed".
"Frankie called us and said, 'He'll be here with us now,'"
"And then Savannah more or less said, 'She's our child. We will raise her as we think she should.' And that's how it all started," he says.
Shortly afterwards, in May 2020, Anita Smith was the second person to call social services in Bradford about Star when she learned that Brockhill had "strangled and nailed" little Star.
David says: “We've never even heard of that term. What does it even mean to 'choke and nail' a ten-month-old baby? What's going on there? We're told Savannah would lift her up, grab her by the neck and throw her on the bed."
He says Anita called social services and warned Bradford authorities that they would have "another Baby P case" if they didn't intervene in the Star case.
But he says their complaint was dismissed as malicious and based on their antipathy towards Brockhill.
At that point, the couple began to isolate themselves from the rest of the family.
According to David, Brockhill helped Frankie and Star move to Keighley, a few miles from her great-grandparents in Baildon.
"Savannah wanted nothing to do with us. She advised Frankie to start hiding Star from us.
"Not long after that, our phone calls started getting blocked," he says.
Away from the concerned people, Star began to go through a worsening period of physical and psychological torture.
At the trial of the two women, Bradford Crown Court found that Brockhill was a proponent of a strong-arm upbringing, which Smith tried to enforce through shouting and other punishments.
Brockhill admitted to hitting the children.
In a text message sent to Smith, she described Star as a "brat".
"You are no authority for her," she added.
Relatives, on the rare occasions when they were allowed to see the child, would begin to notice marks and bruises on her body.
The couple's trial heard that back in June 2020, Brockhill searched the internet for advice on how to get rid of bruises quickly.
That same month, Star's father, Jordan Hobson, called social services a third time after seeing photos of Star with a bruised cheek.
Frankie Smith was visited by the police and Starr was examined by a doctor.
It was the only time she had a medical examination.
On this occasion, just like on others, the couple explained where the child's injuries came from, blaming them on a clumsy child - Star hit her head on the coffee table in the living room; she bumped into the sofa; she tripped and fell.
That was enough to close the cases.
Social media posts over the summer will provide new clues that all is not well in the Old World.
In a series of "disturbing and bizarre" mobile phone videos, the accused women describe Star as an object of amusement, with prosecutor Alistair McDonald describing her as "obviously exhausted and treated with a complete lack of love."
One video shows Star falling from a plastic chair and hitting the floor.
On another, he leans forward and digs into the food bowl.
Some of these recordings have been uploaded online, with humorous captions, music and special effects.
Among court evidence, Brockhill compared them to the videos that can be seen on the show It's set up for you.
As they became increasingly estranged from their beloved great-granddaughter, David Fawcett and Anita Smith grew increasingly worried that something terrible was about to happen to her.
"Anita would say, and she said it often: 'Poor little Star. You do realize, don't you, that it's going to end up like a little star in the sky, right?'" says David.
Over the summer, two more reports were filed, one by a family friend, and the last by Frankie Smith's grandfather, Frank, just weeks before Stara's death.
In September, as the abuse began to escalate, Brockhill, who worked as a night watchman, took Star with her to a recycling facility in Doncaster.
Three hours of security camera footage taken outside the location shows Brockhill hitting the child 21 times.
At one point, the girl fell out of the car.
A video taken the next morning, September 14, after they returned to the apartment, shows a large bruise on Stara's cheek.
According to evidence presented in court, the episode led to an argument between the two partners, with Smith texting Brockhill: "Stay away from us."
However, that did not last.
Just over a week later, Star was playing with two other children in their apartment when she was violently attacked.
Internet searches "shock in babies" and "how to recover a baby from shock" were made 15 minutes before an ambulance was called.
The fatal injury to Stara's abdomen led to lacerations to her internal organs, declared to be the result of "strong and violent" blows.
In court, prosecutor Alistair Macdonald told jurors that "there was no chance of her life being saved" once those injuries were inflicted on her.
Hospital staff said Starr was already dead when she was brought to Airedale General Hospital, a few kilometers from Keighley.
They were taken aback by Brockhill and Smith's unusual behavior - Brockhill's aggression, Smith's reluctance to hold their daughter - and raised concerns with the child protection team.
The women were arrested and charged with Stara's murder.
The investigation revealed numerous injuries on the child, unusual recordings on social media and dozens of text messages that illustrated a dysfunctional relationship centered on a little girl.
By the time all the couple's lies were exposed, it was already too late for Star.
Only after her death did the extent of her physical abuse become apparent.
Text messages to Brockhill have surfaced, full of contempt for the "naughty, unruly" child.
After her death, it was revealed that her two carers delayed calling 15 for XNUMX minutes while she lay on the floor experiencing a "medical disaster".
David Fawcett says Star's family feel let down by the failure of social services.
She believes that her death could have been prevented if something had been done earlier.
While they await the release of reports on child protection measures from several agencies, Fawcett says the family wants to find a way to help so other families don't have to go through what they did.
But Starr Hobson will leave behind another legacy.
Although she lived only 16 months, those who loved her will remember her much longer than that.
Last month, 150 people showed up at a vigil held in her honor.
Pink and yellow balloons were released into the air - colors that the girl often wore.
They were outpourings of love and celebration of the better half of Stara's life, joyful and loved by those around her.
Her best man Jake Lowndes, who organized the event, said it was a fitting tribute to a girl "who had the perfect name for a perfect baby".
"Feelings overcome you"
"I know for a fact that we will never, ever get over losing Star, but we will learn to live with it," says David Fawcett.
"Some mornings I go to work in tears," he adds, knowing that the little girl he was rushing to see at home would never be there to meet him.
"It just hits you and you get overcome with emotion. You just can't believe we'll never see her again."
The memory of their last meeting, in August 2020, about six weeks before Stara's death, is particularly painful.
"I thought we would see each other again. That was the last time.
"I'll never forget it, how she disappeared from my sight, like sand slipping through your fingers.
"And now she's gone."
See also the video about the discovery of abuse in Sudanese schools
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