A nine-month-old newborn girl died after being tied face down to a beanbag for more than ninety minutes, and a nursery worker was convicted responsible of her death.

According to the prosecution, Genevieve Meehan suffocated after Kate Roughley, the deputy manager of Tiny Toes nursery in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, put her in "mortal danger."

At Manchester Crown Court, Roughley, 37, was convicted guilty of Genevieve's manslaughter following a four-week trial. Her sentencing is scheduled for a later time.

The court heard how, on May 9, 2022, Genevieve—known to her family as Gigi—was left face down in the infant room at Tiny Toes, swaddled in a blanket, for one hour and thirty-seven minutes.

After around seven hours of deliberation, the jury foreman announced that Roughley had been found guilty of manslaughter by a unanimous vote. Genevieve's mother, Katie Wheeler, choked back tears in the public gallery. 

When the judge, Mrs. Jusice Naomi Ellenbogen KC, said that Roughley would be facing a "lengthy custodial sentence" at her sentencing, she stood still on the court dock.

Manslaughter and a further allegation of child abuse were refuted by Roughley, who had managed the infant area at the nursery for 17 years, and maintained that she was not the reason behind the young girl's death.

The nine-month-old was put in "mortal danger" by the defendant, the prosecutor Richard Wright KC said the jury, and the defendant purposefully did nothing to stop it.

“Genevieve’s death was not the result of some unforeseen, unexpected, unexplained phenomenon as suggested by Kate Roughley but the result of asphyxiation brought about by a combination of pathophysiological stresses, each of them caused or brought about by her deliberate conduct,” Wright told the jury.

“Genevieve’s death was not a terrible and unavoidable accident. We say it was unquestionably terrible but it was wholly avoidable. As the evidence demonstrates in this case, it was the treatment meted out to Genevieve by Kate Roughley which was the direct cause of her death. Her death arose as a direct consequence of the unsafe sleeping environment, the unsafe sleeping arrangement to which she had been deliberately placed.”

The jury was informed that during the final hours and days before Genevieve passed away, Roughley frequently vented his annoyance at her. Roughley was captured on camera removing the little child from her cot and hurriedly setting her down on a play mat while mumbling, "vile" and "20 minutes." Twenty minutes.

Within an hour, Roughley was spotted applauding and singing “Oh Genevieve. Genevieve go home, Genevieve go home, go home Genevieve” as the child cried on a play mat.