A soldier jailed for causing the death of his baby daughter had warned army doctors that he could harm his child.



 


Former Lance Corporal Liam Culverhouse, from Northampton, is serving a six-year sentence after assaulting Khloe Abrams when she was seven weeks old.


 


The baby suffered brain damage as well as fractures to her skull, ribs and limbs. She died more than a year later of pneumonia brought on by her injuries.


 


A newly published serious case review has highlighted the fact that, in 2009, Culverhouse was the victim of an attack in Helmand province, Afghanistan, which killed five of his comrades.


 


Culverhouse was shot three times, blinded in one eye and played dead to survive.


 


The 25-year-old, who subsequently suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, assaulted his daughter 18 months after being medically discharged from the Army.


 


The review said: “There is evidence that, several months, before the child was born, the father had declared to two doctors employed by the Army that he believed he was likely to harm his child if they were left alone together.


 


“Neither doctor shared that information with Children’s Social Care or the Army Welfare Service and this failure to ultimately share that information with civilian safeguarding agencies was a serious error as it denied those agencies the opportunity to fulfil their responsibilities to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare.”


 


It went on to suggest that measures may well have been put in place which could have prevented the child’s death.


 


Other opportunities were missed.


 


A considerable amount of information was stored in health service files about the father’s troubled years. Some of this, says the report, would have been highly relevant to those assessing his parenting ability.


 


Among the report’s recommendations is the need for more information sharing between army medical staff and their civilian counterparts.