A childminder was jailed for three years yesterday for shaking an 11-month-old baby to death.

Keran Henderson, 42, collapsed in the dock as a jury at Reading Crown Court convicted her of killing Maeve Sheppard in a fit of temper.

The infant was taken to hospital critically ill in March 2005, but her life-support machine was switched off two days later, after a bedside christening.

Medical experts told the court that the child’s fatal brain injuries could only have been caused by a shaking so violent that it caused her neck to snap back and forth.

Henderson, a registered childminder from Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, wept as she was convicted of manslaughter after a five-week trial.

Outbursts from Henderson’s relatives in the public gallery meant the court had to be adjourned before Mr Justice Keith could sentence her. He told her: “You are going to have to live the rest of your life with the knowledge that Maeve died in your care. We do not know what really happened to make you snap in the way the jury found that you did.”

The court was told that Henderson, a mother of two, was an experienced childminder and a Beaver Scout leader. She began her childminding business seven years ago, and was hired by Ruth and Mark Sheppard in January 2005.

At 11am on March 2, Henderson noted in the diary that she kept for Maeve’s parents that she was “whizzing around in her baby walker”. Minutes later, the emergency services were called.

Experts for the defence argued that the injuries could have been months old. Henderson claimed that the baby had been repeatedly ill almost from the first day in her care – a claim that Maeve’s parents denied.

She said that as she changed her nappy, Maeve “stiffened and jerked back”. Her eyes rolled back into her head, her body went floppy and she was gurgling as if something was stuck in her throat, Henderson claimed. Days after Maeve’s death, she gave up childminding.

The prosecution admitted that Henderson was “good with children”, and a website set up by her husband is full of messages of support from children she has cared for and their parents. But after deliberating for more than 12 hours the jury rejected her account by ten to two.

Henderson’s family, including her husband, Iain, a former Royal Parks police officer, reacted angrily to the verdict.

Amid emotional scenes in court, Mr Justice Keith said that he no longer wanted Mrs Sheppard’s victim impact statement to be read by her in open court. He said that he had read it twice in private and assured Mr and Mrs Sheppard that he had fully digested its contents. In her statement Mrs Sheppard said: “Keran Henderson not only took my daughter’s life away, but she took away our right as her parents to grieve her, to mourn her, to think and remember her in any other way than with pain and anguish. She also took away our right to say goodbye to Maeve.”

Mrs Sheppard, who was pregnant with the couple’s second daughter when Maeve died and now also has a son, said: “When we left Maeve at 7.30am that morning with Keran, she was healthy and smiling, having played blowing raspberries with her dad on the bed prior to leaving home.

“The next time we saw Maeve she was unconscious fighting for her life. I just don’t know how to get past the pain and memory of holding her in our arms after turning the machine off in hospital and watching her die.”

After the hearing, the Sheppards said in a statement: “No sentence will ever bring back our daughter and we will never be able to forgive this woman for what she took away from us.” They added: “We carried out the relevant checks to make sure Keran was a good, trustworthy childminder and our gut instinct was to trust her. If only she had told us that it was not working out between her and Maeve, then we would have our baby daughter with us today.”

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