Mum Who Shook Toddler to Death Keeps Soft 9-Year Sentence

A mother who violently shook her two-year-old daughter to death will serve only half her nine-year jail term and will not be deported to Afghanistan on release after senior judges ruled the sentence was not “unduly lenient”.

Morsal Mohammed Naim, 33, of Levenshulme, Manchester, admitted manslaughter and child cruelty after her daughter Omra Wali Jan suffered catastrophic brain injuries. The Attorney General referred the February sentence from Manchester Crown Court to the Court of Appeal, arguing it was too soft. Three judges rejected the challenge this week, even while acknowledging they would have imposed a longer term themselves.

Lord Justice Bean, sitting with Mr Justice Jay and Mrs Justice Heather Williams, said the original sentence fell within the range open to the trial judge. He described the circumstances as “exceptional and extreme”. Naim will automatically spend half the term in custody under standard rules before release on licence.

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The court heard the couple, who arrived from Afghanistan in 2021 and spoke little English, would not face deportation on her release.
Omra, aged two years and three months, died in hospital on 9 February 2024 after life support was withdrawn. She had been found unresponsive at the family’s Levenshulme flat on 30 November 2023. Naim first told paramedics the toddler had choked on a biscuit.

She later claimed Omra had fallen and hit her head on a baby bouncer, and that she had shaken the child only in an attempt to revive her.

Medical evidence told a different story. Doctors found a devastating brain injury consistent with extremely forceful shaking, plus burns caused by a cigarette lighter, bruising, bite marks and a fractured rib. The abuse had continued over several weeks. Omra had been born in Afghanistan and raised by her father’s relatives before joining her parents in the UK in September 2023. She had never been registered with a GP and no medical help was sought for her earlier injuries.

Her father, Firooz Wali Jan, 32, who is deaf and unable to speak, was jailed for six years and nine months after admitting child cruelty. He was not at home when the fatal injuries were inflicted. The sentencing judge, Mr Justice Turner, earlier condemned the couple’s “sadistic behaviour” and “multiple incidents of serious cruelty”.

At the appeal hearing, Naim’s barrister stressed her client’s strong personal mitigation: profound social isolation, a controlling marriage, low cognitive ability amounting to a learning disability, and cultural and linguistic barriers.

Prosecutors argued the judge should have raised the overall term to reflect both the manslaughter and the sustained cruelty. The appeal judges disagreed, finding the nine-year total not so far outside the available range as to justify intervention.

The case has highlighted the extreme vulnerability of a young child moved into an isolated household where neither parent spoke English and medical care was never sought.

Police and prosecutors described the killing as almost impossible to comprehend in its cruelty.

Naim’s sentence stands, she will serve roughly four and a half years behind bars, and she will remain in the UK on release.