Mother Jailed Six years for Killing Baby With Hairdryer

The High Court in Edinburgh, Scotland, has sentenced a 28-year-old woman identified as Courtney Gartshore to six years in prison for causing the death of her three-month-old daughter, Dahlia-Rose, in 2023, while she was drunk.

The Judiciary of Scotland announced the judgement in a statement on Friday, after a jury unanimously convicted the defendant of culpable homicide.

Judge Simon Collins said the baby suffered severe burns to about 18 per cent of her body, including her head, face, neck, upper body and right arm, from fatal overheating after being exposed to heat from a hairdryer.

The judge said the defendant drank “a significant amount of alcohol” the night before, then returned home at 4 a.m. with the baby still in her care.

He also stated that, “The charge was that having consumed alcohol, and while in sole charge of Dahlia Rose, the accused culpably and recklessly caused her to be subjected to significant and sustained heat from a hairdryer, on her head and body, as a result of which she sustained injuries so severe that she died.”

According to Mr Collins, evidence revealed that the defendant turned on the hairdryer, kept it near the infant and left it running for at least 20 minutes, up to an hour.

The prosecution concluded that the likely cause of death was hyperthermia and heatstroke, rather than the burns themselves, but the defence argued that the child might already have died from another “sudden and unexplained cause” before being exposed to the hairdryer.

The jury, however, rejected the defence’s argument, with Mr Collins calling the case “uniquely disturbing and distressing”, but pointing out that the prosecution did not accuse the defendant of intending to harm or kill her daughter.