Image Source: Police Scotland | Courtney Gartshore
A Scottish mother who killed her three-month-old daughter by subjecting her to sustained heat from a hairdryer has been sentenced to six years in prison in what a judge described as a “uniquely disturbing and distressing case”.
Courtney Gartshore, 28, was convicted of culpable homicide after killing baby Dahlia-Rose at their home in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, in September 2023.
The High Court heard that Gartshore subjected the defenceless infant to heat from a hairdryer for up to an hour, leaving severe burns across approximately 18 per cent of her body.
Dahlia-Rose suffered injuries to her head, neck, upper body, and one arm. Expert evidence concluded that she died from hyperthermia and heat stroke.
Sentencing Gartshore at the High Court in Edinburgh, Judge Simon Collins KC said she had inflicted “severe and disfiguring” burns.
“Given Dahlia-Rose’s very young age, and the horrifying way that she died, this is a uniquely disturbing and distressing case,” he said.
Detective Inspector James Callander said after the conviction: “Children are defenceless and should be protected.”
“The death of any child is particularly harrowing, but a child’s death at the hands of a parent is incredibly disturbing,” he added.
Yet Gartshore, who was convicted unanimously, received a sentence of only six years.
The horrifying case comes as Scotland is considering a radically different approach to the protection afforded to children in law.
An independent review commissioned by the Scottish Government has proposed removing women from criminal liability for ending their own pregnancies, including beyond Scotland’s current 24-week general abortion limit. The review has also considered broader changes to abortion law. Any eventual legislation, which SPUC will try to prevent, would determine the precise legal effect.
Nevertheless, the contrast raises an important question about how the law understands the value of young human life.
Despite the sentence, Dahlia-Rose was rightly recognised by the criminal law as a defenceless child whose killing demanded punishment. Yet just before birth, children at the same advanced stages of development can receive dramatically different legal protection.
When the law increasingly withdraws protection from human life before birth, particularly at later gestations, there is a legitimate concern about the cultural message this sends concerning the value and vulnerability of the youngest human beings.
SPUC’s Communications Manager, Peter Kearney, said: “Nothing could excuse what happened to Dahlia-Rose. Her terrible death demonstrates precisely why society recognises a special obligation to protect children who cannot protect themselves.
“The more protections for children are eroded in Scottish law, the more our culture will change from being one that sees children as worthy of protection to one that gives a puny six-year sentence for culpably and recklessly causing the death of a three-month-old baby. It should strike many as extraordinarily inadequate.”
