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Poppy Iris Worthington was born at Furnish General Hospital on October 12th, 2011. She lived in Barrowan Furnace, a town in Cumbria, England. She was born to father Paul Worthington and a mother whose name has not been revealed publicly for legal reasons. Poppy’s mother had three daughters from a previous relationship and in 2009 she got together with Paul and had three more children.
This included Poppy and her twin brother. Family and friends remembered Poppy as a beautiful and happy baby. She was often described as alert and very sociable. In her mother’s words, she was very alive, bubbly, funny. Poppy was a good sleeper, following a routine of a couple of naps during the day and a regular bedtime around 7:30 p.m.
At bedtime, Poppy enjoyed having a bottle as she settled down to sleep. She also never went to bed without her pink elephant pillow. Her mother explained that Poppy would lie on her tummy a top that pink elephant pillow when sleeping. Poppy was known as the family’s alarm clock because she reliably woke up early between 5:30 and 6:00 in the morning, ready to start the day with boundless energy. Poppy wouldn’t cry upon waking.
Instead, her morning routine was to rattle her bottle against the sides of her cot and call out, “Mom!” letting the household know that she was up and eager to play. Although Poppy was considered the baby of the family, she didn’t lack for playmates. Her three older halfsisters doted on her and her slightly older twin brother was her companion in mischief.
Poppy was generally healthier than her twin and needed fewer doctor’s visits than he did. Aside from a brief hospitalization for bronchitis when she was about 3 months old and about of conjunctivitis later on, Poppy hadn’t had any serious health issues. This will become an incredibly important fact to remember as Poppy’s story progresses.
Poppy’s mother had faced significant hardships in her own upbringing and spent time in foster care due to family violence. But according to reports, she seemed to be a competent mother coping with a rapidly growing family. Although she could have benefited from more support and help from social services given her background.
Aby’s father, Paul, was around 40 years old when he began a relationship with her 23year-old mother. He worked in a supermarket and not much is known about his earlier life, but reports revealed that he was known to the police. Officials also later admitted that they knew nothing about Paul in terms of assessing his role as a parent.
The relationship between Poppy’s parents was reportedly on and off. They were not married, and by 2012, they may have been more like exartners co-parenting than a stable couple. Poppy’s mother indicated that sometimes Paul lived in the house with the family and other times he did not. For instance, there was an episode where Paul had custody of Poppy for a time and then returned her to her mother’s care in the summer, implying that the parents were separated during that period of time.
But according to Poppy’s mother, the family had future plans to move to a new town to make a fresh start. And those plans included Paul. After Poppy and her brother were born, the family moved into a modest three-bedroom rented house that actually belonged to Paul’s sister, Tracy Worththington. It had a living room and kitchen downstairs and three bedrooms and one bathroom upstairs.
Poppy’s mother and Paul shared the master bedroom, which had a double bed, but her mother often chose to sleep downstairs on the sofa. In that master bedroom, two travel cotss were set up for the two youngest boys, Poppy’s twin brother and her 2-year-old brother. Poppy herself slept in a cot in one of the other bedrooms.
She sometimes shared that room with one of her older sisters while the remaining two girls shared the third bedroom together. By 2012, Poppy was toddling about standing on her two feet for the first time. According to her mother, Poppy liked her food but could be a bit picky about it. Like many young children, Poppy had some digestive issues.
These issues concerned her mother enough to consult a pediatrician, but these issues were usually minor and passed within a day or two. In the summer of 2012, Poppy’s mother noticed blood in her daughter’s diaper, which she mentioned to a nurse. But due to the fact that it wasn’t persistent, it was chocked up as a bout of constipation.
In the early winter of 2012, Poppy suffered a broken leg. At the time, the injury went untreated. Either the family did not seek medical care or they did not even realize the extent of the injury. There was also no record of any accident that could explain how a child as young as Poppy could have broken her leg.
In early December of 2012, many members of the household were suffering from flu-l like symptoms. Poppy herself had come down with what seemed like a bad cold around the 11th. She had a runny nose and was more lethargic than usual. Her mother noted that Poppy slept longer than normal during her afternoon nap that day and had to be woken up, which was unusual for her.
Poppy also had a slight fever, so her mother asked Paul to give her a dose of paracetamol. Now, if you’re listening in the United States, you would know this as acetaminophen or Tylenol. Despite feeling unwell, Poppy did eat a bit of lunch and tea that day, so whatever was bothering her didn’t seem to be severe. However, in the late afternoon, Poppy’s mother said she threw herself back in her high chair and just screamed out in pain as if she had a sudden stomach ache.
Mother thought that Poppy might have needed to use the bathroom, so she picked Poppy up from her high chair and rubbed her belly. She then changed Poppy and noticed evidence of digestive issues, but didn’t see any blood. According to her mother, Poppy was all right and was playing and socializing again that evening. Poppy’s mother went out briefly in the late afternoon to pick up one of the older children from school, leaving Poppy at home with Paul and one of his friends that had stopped by to visit.
After returning, she put Poppy into her pajamas and set her into a cot in one of the bedrooms with her bottle and pink elephant pillow. Sometime around 8:45 p.m., Poppy’s brother woke up crying, so Paul comforted him. Afterwards, he stayed in the master bedroom and played on the computer in the bed for a time. Paul said that he went to bed around 9:30 p.m. taking his laptop to bed with him.
He later admitted that he typically would check football results and then spent about 10 minutes looking at what he referred to as X-rated adult stuff online before going to sleep. Poppy’s mother remained downstairs. Eventually, the mother brought the 2-year-old boy upstairs to bed as well, placing him in his cot in the master bedroom.
And then she herself went downstairs to sleep on the couch. In the early hours of December 12th, Poppy’s mother briefly came upstairs to the master bedroom. She woke Paul up between 2:15 and 2:30 a.m. because she wanted to use the laptop and needed a charger for it. She also noticed that Poppy’s twin brother had a stuffy nose, so she decided to take the boy downstairs with her so he could sleep in his stroller.
In her mind, claiming it would help clear his nose. Paul, who was half asleep, later claimed he couldn’t fully remember this interaction, but he didn’t dispute that it happened. Sometime between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m., Poppy woke up crying. One of Paul’s earlier accounts, she woke up 15 minutes before her usual time, while in one of his later accounts, he said it was nearly an hour early.
Poppy’s cry was described as a scream that sounded urgent and distressed. Both parents claimed to immediately wake up upon hearing her. According to Paul, he got out of bed and went to Poppy’s room to see what was wrong. found Poppy in her cot sitting up on her knees in the dark and wasn’t sure if she had a nightmare or was in pain.
Paul then took her out of her cot and brought her into the master bedroom to his own bed. At this point, he strayed from the usual routine. Normally, he would have taken Poppy downstairs to change her and so she wouldn’t wake up the other kids. Poppy’s mother would later insist that Poppy had never been taken into her parents’ bed before.
This was because she knew that there was a risk of suffocation due to her small size. Al stated his reason for doing this was that he wanted to comfort Poppy and figure out what was wrong with her. He picked up her pacifier and her bottle from the cod as he carried Poppy to his bed. Much of what we’re going to discuss next comes from Paul’s own accounts.
In the master bedroom, Paul sat on the edge of the bed with Poppy as he tried to calm her down. But something about Poppy’s condition struck him as odd. He later described that when he first lifted Poppy from the cod, her body was solid, stiff, and uptight, almost rigid. Even after he sat down with her on his knees, she was clenching her teeth and wouldn’t take the pacifier when he tried to put it in her mouth.
Paul claimed he thought she might be constipated. He claimed that Poppy was pushing down in his lap, which he interpreted as her straining. Acting on that assumption, Paul said he partially undid the snaps of Poppy’s onesie and checked her diaper. According to Paul, he observed evidence of digestive issues, but didn’t find it unusual due to past issues in her flu-l like symptoms.
He also didn’t notice any blood. Now, I know it might seem odd that we keep noting this, but it will become important later, just like the fact that Poppy really didn’t have any health issues prior to 2012. Paul claimed that Poppy had stopped screaming and seemed relaxed in his own words, then placed her in the bed on her back.
Afterwards, he allegedly left Poppy there for a moment to go fetch a fresh diaper because it was dark and early. He said he did not turn on the bedroom light, not wanting to wake the other children in the house. Paul said that he took precautions to prevent Poppy from rolling off the bed, placed her head on a pillow, and put another pillow on one side of her and a quilt on the other side.
of Poppy lying in that position on his bed, still wearing her soiled diaper, but unclothed from the waist down. As he came downstairs, Poppy’s mother was half asleep on the sofa. Paul told her that Poppy had been screaming that he was getting a clean diaper. She was groggy and later recalled being semi-conscious when Paul briefly spoke to her.
I’ll insist he was downstairs and back up within 90 seconds. Paul returned to the master bedroom. Poppy was very still and silent. He thought perhaps she had fallen asleep in the short time he was gone. Now, wanting to disturb her, he decided that instead of immediately putting her back into her own cot, he would let her sleep a little longer.
Paul claimed he chose not to change her, decided to lay back down next to her in bed, intending to doze off for just a few more minutes. A short time later, perhaps only 5 to 10 minutes after Paul had gone back to bed, he reached over to touch Poppy and immediately sensed something was wrong. He said that he didn’t know what made him reach out to touch her, but when he did, her arm was limp.
He found Poppy completely unresponsive. She was lying the same position he had left her, but now her little arms were floppy, and she wasn’t moving or making a sound. Panicking, he tapped her face gently, calling her name, but got no response. Paul tried picking Poppy up, and her body just slumped in his arms, completely limp.
It was at this point that Paul began shouting in panic. Around 5:56 a.m., Poppy’s mother heard Paul suddenly thundering down the stairs with something in his arms. He was carrying little Poppy, lifeless, as he ran into the living room. He cried out to the mother to call for an ambulance. On the recording, Poppy’s mother can be heard desperately trying to convey what is happening, saying how her child isn’t breathing and has turned blue.
The operator instructed the mother to relay CPR directions to Paul. Within minutes, an ambulance crew and police arrived. Paramedics found Paul performing CPR as her mother stood by, sobbing and pleading for her child to wake up. The paramedics took over resuscitation efforts and quickly prepared to transport Poppy to the hospital.
Paul climbed into the ambulance with his daughter and the paramedics left for Furnish General Hospital at about 6:11 a.m. Poppy’s mother was initially left behind at the house with the other children and the responding police officers. The Cumbria police did not secure the house as a potential crime scene. Poppy’s aunt Tracy had arrived at the house shortly after the ambulance left to help with the other children.
While there, Tracy noticed a used diaper lying on the living room floor, which she described as extremely soiled and foul smelling. Tracy asked an onseen police officer if she could throw it away. The officer gave her permission to dispose of it, so Tracy tied it up in a plastic bag and tossed it into an outside bin.
Police on the scene also did not immediately seize bedding or the pajama bottoms Poppy had been wearing. Those items too went missing in the shuffle. During the ambulance ride, paramedics continued CPR and advanced life support measures on Poppy. In reports, she was in cardiac arrest. They were trying to get her heart beating and her lungs breathing again, but she did not respond.
The ambulance reached Furnace General Hospital, the same hospital where Poppy had been born just 13 months earlier. Medical staff worked on her for some time, but there was unfortunately nothing that they could do. and Poppy Warthington was pronounced dead at the hospital on December 12th, 2012. The exact recorded time of death was around 7:20 a.m.
, but Poppy had likely died at home or in route despite the efforts that were being made. The initial assumption among first responders was that this might be a case of sudden unexplained death in childhood or an accidental suffocation. The post-mortem examination of Poppy’s body was conducted by Dr. Allison Armory, home office forensic pathologist with experience in child deaths.
Externally, aside from a small amount of blood around the nostrils and some slight bruising on the face from CPR efforts, Poppy’s body didn’t show any major trauma. But now we have to talk about her internal injuries and about the blood and why Paul was so insistent that Poppy wasn’t bleeding when he was changing her.
There was actually a lot of blood. so much that it could be seen dribbling down her legs. Even after 5 hours had passed since her death, blood kept leaking out of her body. Dr. Armor discovered redness and bruising on Poppy’s inner thighs, as well as other injuries and tears. There was also bruising noted in the deep soft tissues at the back of her throat, suggesting possible force airway obstruction or an object being pushed into her mouth.
There was ambiguity about whether these injuries may have occurred during resuscitation efforts. After thoroughly examining Poppy’s body, Dr. Arma’s conclusion was that her injuries were strongly consistent with essay. In addition, she identified the healing fractures in Poppy’s right leg. Then another significant piece of forensic evidence came to light.
Poppy’s DNA was found on Paul’s privates. This was determined through swabs and tests done during the investigation. When confronted with this, Paul claimed that the DNA transfer occurred innocently when he was handling Poppy during the emergency and then later went to the bathroom at the hospital. He suggested he might have transferred her DNA by not washing his hands and then urinating.
Experts found this unconvincing given the nature and location of the DNA. Poppy’s surviving siblings were medically examined to check if they had any signs of harm and child protection procedures were initiated to ensure that they were safe. All the children were removed from the parents care within 24 hours of Poppy’s death as a standard when one child dies in suspicious circumstances.
Cumbria police did not properly investigate Poppy’s death for a full 9 months following the incident. Initially, a detective and team were assigned, but they did not treat it with any urgency. A later independent police complaints commission inquiry identified at least 12 major errors or omissions in the handling of the case.
Among these were failing to secure the scene, failing to preserve and test items like the bedding, blanket, pillow that might have DNA or fluids, failing to seize the laptop and mobile phones for forensic analysis, and not promptly interviewing key witnesses. Paul himself was not formally interviewed or arrested on the day of Poppy’s death, despite him being the lone adult that was present with her.
One factor might have been that one doctor initially didn’t find a cause of death. listed as undetermined pending further tests, leading some officers to mistakenly think that there might not be a case here. But Dr. Armor’s suspicions of essay were known. And as you might be well aware of, prosecutors can file charges based on a coroner’s findings.
And so it’s hard to justify an action here by anything else except for systemic failure. Eight months later, in August of 2013, the police finally took decisive action. They arrested both Paul and Poppy’s mother and formerly interviewed them. Paul was arrested on suspicion of essay and his daughter, an allegation which he vehemently denied.
Poppy’s mother was also arrested, though details were not made public. Both were released on bail as the investigation continued. The case then proceeded on two parallel tracks, one in the criminal justice system and another in the family court system. No criminal charges were immediately filed in 2013.
Cumbria police eventually handed the case over to the Crown Prosecution Service after completing what investigation that they could. March of 2015, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that they would not charge anyone in relation to Poppy’s death. The reason given was lack of sufficient evidence to have a realistic prospect of conviction, largely due to the botched investigation that failed to get any forensic evidence.
>> However, parallel inquiries and proceedings were shedding more light. In March of 2014 and then again in November of 2015, a high court judge, Mr. Justice Peter Jackson, held factf finding hearings to determine what happened to Poppy as part of care proceedings for the surviving children. These family court hearings are civil and use a lower burden of proof.
Initially, the details were kept secret due to reporting restrictions, but eventually parts were made public. In January of 2016, Justice Jackson found on the balance of probabilities that Paul had essayed Poppy shortly before she died. This family court ruling didn’t send Paul to jail because family courts cannot convict criminals, but it did bring the case into public awareness.
Once revealed, the public outcry was enormous. Facing vilification as the alleged perpetrator, Paul actually fled abroad in January of 2016, right after the judgment was made public. His sister told reporters that Paul left the country due to death threats and harassment. Community members threatened vigilante justice.
He was described as being in hiding hundreds of miles away, fearing for his life. Paul maintained his innocence and through his sister he complained that the authorities had failed him by destroying evidence that might have exonerated him. Paul’s sister Tracy stood by him asserting that he doted on those children.
It would never harm them. Tracy said if she believed that he was guilty, she would not protect him and that she truly believed that he was innocent. Given the lack of criminal charges, the coroner decided to hold a full inquest into Poppy’s death as another route to establish the truth. The second inquest took place in late 2017 with senior coroner David Roberts presiding.
The inquest called dozens of witnesses over three weeks, including paramedics, doctors, social workers, and both of Poppy’s parents. Notably, Paul was compelled to give evidence of the corners in Quest, though he was allowed to do so from behind a screen to shield him from the public. When he took the stand in November of 2017, Paul refused to answer questions 252 times, repeatedly invoking his right not to incriminate himself.
Every question about what happened that night was met with silence or a statement of no comment. Poppy’s mother felt his non-answers frustrated the inquest search for the truth. The coroner noted that Paul’s earlier accounts did not stand up to scrutiny and were inconsistent or unlikely in many respects.
One puzzling detail was that Poppy’s pink elephant pillow, her favorite comfort item that always stayed in her cot, was found on the double bed in Paul’s room afterwards. Paul claimed he had no idea how that pillow got into his bed. Investigators suspect he might have grabbed it to silence her during the essay.
Also, a bottle of milk was later found lying on the bed with a damp patch of milk on the sheet, indicating that Poppy had been in bed long enough for a bottle to spill, contrary to Paul’s timeline. Poppy’s mother also stated that there was a partially unraveled roll of paper towels on the bed, something that they never kept in the bedroom to begin with.
Additionally, Poppy’s pajama bottoms could not be seen in any of the pictures taken that day. Her mother stated that she tried very hard to search for them at home, but she has never found them since. >> On January 15th, 2018, Coroner Roberts delivered his official conclusions. Poppy died as a result of being suffocated while sleeping in an unsafe environment after being essayed by her father.
Paul argued these words went too far for a standard inquest. He claimed that because the essay itself hadn’t directly caused Poppy’s death, it shouldn’t be part of the formal record explaining how she died. He seemed motivated by the fact that this record would be permanent and would be commonly referenced by the public in regards to the case.
The court reviewing his complaint rejected it outright. It ruled that the coroner was right to include the essay in the inquest record because it explained why Poppy was placed in an unsafe sleeping position that led to her death. The court found nothing unlawful about recording those facts and emphasized that an inquest has a duty to lay out the full circumstances surrounding a death when the public interest demands it.
However, the coroner constrained by legal standards recorded the cause of death in a narrative form rather than labeling it unlawful killing because he could not be sure beyond a reasonable doubt whether the death was murder or manslaughter. He did emphasize that there was no natural cause to explain Poppy’s death and that no one else could have been responsible except the adult with her at the time.
The public inquest verdict added pressure on the Crown Prosecution Service to reconsider the charges against Paul. The coroner himself took the unusual step of formally sending his findings to the Crown Prosecution Service for review given the gravity of the conclusions. Poppy’s mother through her lawyer made an impassion plea that after all these years and three court findings, the agency should take another look and try to prosecute Paul.
However, in January of 2018, the Crown Prosecution Service announced it had no plans to prosecute Paul, essentially standing by its earlier decision due to insufficient evidence. They reiterated that without any new evidence, a prosecution would not succeed. APY’s mother was disappointed. She expressed through her lawyer that the past 5 years have been a complete nightmare.
Despite this, she has shown courage in pushing for accountability. She said she is relieved to finally have some answers after the 2018 inquest and is closer to the truth. Even though that truth is devastating. As of the date of this recording in July of 2025, Paul Worththington remains a free man.
His whereabouts are completely unknown to the public and he has never been charged or convicted with anything related to Poppy’s essay or death.
