Girl 'had lost 40% of body weight'

A seven-year-old girl who was allegedly starved to death by her mother had lost around 40% of her body weight by the time she died, a murder trial jury has been told.

Khyra Ishaq's body mass index at the point of her death last May was so low that it "ran off the scale" of normal medical charts, Birmingham Crown Court heard.

Angela Gordon and her partner Junaid Abuhamza, both of Handsworth, Birmingham, deny murdering Khyra on May 17 last year.

Professor Peter Milla said medical records showed Khyra had grown and put on weight normally until April 2007, when she weighed 3st 9lb.

But Khyra became "amazingly thin" after suffering dramatic and significant weight loss, he said.

Asked by prosecutor Timothy Raggatt QC to comment on the child's condition, Prof Milla told the jury: "In a child with no disease state, that is extremely unusual - I don't think that previously I have ever seen something as marked as that."

The physician, referring to knowledge gained from studies of IRA hunger strikes, Prof Milla added: "She lost approximately 40% of her body weight - we know from the Belfast fasters that when you lose that amount of weight, you die."

The prosecution alleges that Gordon and Abuhamza murdered Khyra by starving her "for weeks or possibly months" at her home.

Abuhamza, 30, and 34-year-old Gordon, both of Leyton Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, deny murdering Khyra on May 17 last year.

Abuhamza pleaded guilty last week to five cruelty charges relating to other children. Gordon denies the charges of child cruelty, which are alleged to have been committed between December 2007 and May 17 2008.