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A ‘callous and brutal’ father who murdered his baby daughter by repeatedly biting, punching and shaking her has been jailed for life with a minimum of 22 years. Lithuanian Aurimas Medvedevas, 23, inflicted terrible injuries on two-month-old Aukse on September 5 last year, the day her mother went back to work for the first time since giving birth.
The judge said that the bite marks on the baby’s head were ‘particularly shocking’.
His partner, agency worker Dzesika Urbikaite, 22, returned to their Peterborough home that night to find her daughter dead in a cot.
Medvedevas, of Clifton Avenue, Peterborough, denied murder but on the third day of his Old Bailey trial he changed his plea to guilty in light of the overwhelming evidence against him.
Jailing him today, judge Timothy Pontius said the brutality of the attack on a defenceless baby almost defied belief.
He said the fact that baby Aukse suffered considerably for hours before her eventual death ‘demonstrated a callousness that is as incredible as it is inhuman’.
Prosecutor Karim Khalil QC told jurors: ‘For reasons known only to him, he took hold of his own baby, he bit her on the head, he struck her repeatedly and he shook her hard. As a result of all that she died, not immediately, but a few hours later.’
The nine-week-old survived for up to six hours after the attack and would have suffered considerably while her father did nothing to help her, the court heard.
A post-mortem examination uncovered a catalogue of bruises, cuts and abrasions on her body as well as two distinct bite marks on her head.
An examination of one of the bite marks showed it matched the defendant’s teeth imprint, the court heard.
Defence lawyer Sallie Bennett-Jenkins QC said Medvedevas had shown ‘heartfelt’ remorse for what he had done to his own daughter.
‘He recalls she died in his arms and afterwards he was terrified as to the hurt he had inflicted on her and his girlfriend who he loved very much. He was in a state of utter terror and hurt.’
She said the defendant was a ‘loving and caring’ man who had suffered a ‘clear mental disturbance’.
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