A registered child minder shook an 11-month-old baby in a fit of temper, blinding her and leading to her death from brain injuries days later, a court was told.

Keren Henderson, 42, is a scout leader and “very good with children”, Reading Crown Court was told. On the morning of March 2, 2005, she was in sole care of Maeve Sheppard when she was taken to hospital unconscious and critically ill. Doctors tried to save her but life support machines were turned off two days later, the court was told.

Mrs Henderson had been employed to look after the baby by parents Ruth and Mark Sheppard. Mrs Sheppard went back to work six months after the birth of their first child and for a few months family friends looked after their daughter. But at the end of January 2005 Mrs Henderson took over care of Maeve at her home in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire.

The emergency services received a call at midday on March 2, and Maeve was taken to hospital but she never recovered. Joanna Glynn, for the prosecution, told the jury that Mrs Henderson was “really very good with children”. But Ms Glynn added that the medical evidence “in this case is not a matter of guesswork”.

Maeve had been healthy on the morning of March 2 when she was dropped off by her parents at 7.30am, she told the court, and there was no evidence that any natural disease contributed to her death.

“The cause of death was given as head and neck injuries and it is the prosecution’s case that these injuries were nonaccidental. It is our case that Mrs Henderson violently shook Maeve and the medical evidence is that that act caused Maeve’s death.”

She said that the court would hear Mrs Henderson’s account of events leading up to the little girl’s death. The mother of two would claim, she said, that Maeve had been having her nappy changed when she had a serious fit that immediately caused her to be very unwell. But, said Ms Glynn, experts would say that the injuries Maeve received could only have been caused by trauma. Mrs Henderson denies one count of manslaughter between March 1 and March 5, 2005.

The court was told that Maeve had fallen ill on a number of occasions in the month before her death.

On February 15 Mrs Henderson took her to her own GP, saying that the child had hit her head by falling over while sitting on a hard floor and was now vomiting.

The child was taken to hospital where an upper respiratory tract infection was diagnosed. She was given antibiotics and sent home.

Ms Glynn told the jury that although Maeve had suffered some illness there was no explanation for any serious injury to her brain.

Doctors found a “triad” of injuries that they would expect to see in cases of shaking injury in babies, including evidence of bleeding from the brain and overextension of the blood vessels leading to the brain.

Mrs Sheppard told the jury how her daughter woke up “happy” on the day of her death. She described her “blowing raspberries with her dad” as Mrs Sheppard got ready for work.

The trial continues.

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