What happened
Genevieve Meehan was born prematurely on 18 July 2021 and started at Tiny Toes Nursery in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, at eight months old. On 9 May 2022 she was in the baby room, nine months and 21 days old.
At 13:28 the staff member caring for her told a colleague she would rather put the baby on the bean bag than waste a cot. She placed her there at around 13:35, tightly swaddled and fastened into a harness, face down, with a blanket that at least partly covered her head. She stayed there for more than ninety minutes.
CCTV showed her distress was readily apparent, visibly and audibly, and the checks on her cursory and infrequent. Her last movement was at 14:24. The alarm was raised at 15:12. She was pronounced dead at Stepping Hill Hospital at 16:09.
The outcome
Kate Roughley, 37, was convicted by a jury of unlawful act manslaughter, the underlying offence being child cruelty. On 22 May 2024 at the Crown Court at Manchester, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen sentenced her to 14 years.
The judge found to the criminal standard that she was left there for over ninety minutes while her distress was “readily apparent, both visibly and audibly”. She told the defendant the death was “absolutely avoidable”. The pathologist certified asphyxia and pathophysiological stress from an unsafe sleeping environment. No regulatory outcome is recorded.
What went wrong
Safe sleep for a baby of this age means the back, on a firm, flat surface. The nursery’s policy said so, required a baby who rolled onto her tummy to be turned back, and required checks recorded every ten minutes.
Roughley was NVQ Level 3 qualified, with 17 years’ experience. She met none of the policy’s key requirements. Her account of visual checks from the far end of the room was rejected by the jury; the judge held such checks “woefully inadequate” in any event. She accepted the ratio fell short of the statutory framework, but held that this did not explain or justify the conduct.
What it teaches
A baby who stops moving because she cannot move has not been soothed.
Face-down position, soft surface, no check on the airway: all three applied to an infant who could resist none of them. A harness and a bean bag hold a baby where she cannot leave. Using them is a restraint decision, whatever the rota calls it.
Two cots stood empty, and the reason given was that a cot would be wasted. Convenience is not a clinical reason. Ten-minute checks on a sheet control nothing unless somebody reads it while the shift is running.
Questions for the room
- Two cots were empty. Who decided the bean bag was the better option, and who checked that decision?
- The ten-minute check was written into policy. Who was reading that record at 14:00?
- Senior managers held a live feed of the baby room. What did that oblige them to do?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. The remarks were read in part and are corroborated by BBC reporting. The Greater Manchester Police press release returned an error and was not read. The remarks stop part-way through, so the reasoning behind the 14-year term is not on this page.
Genevieve is named because the remarks and the press name her, Roughley because she was convicted. No other staff member is identified.
The record files the case under sector “school” because it has no early-years sector; the setting was a private day nursery.
Our school training at positivehandling.co.uk covers restraint in education settings, and how to reduce how often it is used.
Sources
- Courts and Tribunals Judiciary · R v Roughley, sentencing remarks of Mrs Justice Ellenbogen DBE · 22 May 2024
- BBC News · Nursery worker jailed for 14 years for baby’s manslaughter · 22 May 2024
Reviewed 20 October 2026.