MURDER accused Savannah Brockhill denied being a “very angry” person who “had to always be in control” today, while admitting striking Star Hobson once.

She was giving evidence and put under cross-examination in the trial into the death of 16-month-old Star Hobson on September 22, 2020.

Brockhill, 28, of Hawthorn Close, Keighley, and her partner - and Star’s mother - Frankie Smith, 20, of Wesley Place, Keighley, both deny murdering the toddler, and causing or allowing her death.

Brockhill was being questioned by Zafar Ali QC, for Smith, after finishing giving her evidence and account of the incident while being questioned by her barrister Kath Goddard QC.

Mr Ali said Brockhill was an “angry person” who had had anger issues for years, and in 2020 was “very angry”, to which she said “at times yes, anger never goes away”.

“In texts from February 29, you said ‘I’ll stab someone tonight’, you were so angry you could stab someone, anyone,” Mr Ali said.

Brockhill replied: “It was a figure of speech.”

Mr Ali went on: “You said, ‘I don’t care if there’s kids in the house, I’ll rage. They’ll need police to take me away’.”

Brockhill answered: “Raging, arguing.”

Mr Ali responded: “You know the police will only take someone away if there’s a risk or threat of violence, not for arguing.”

He also said Brockhill “wanted to be in control of Frankie Smith, at all times”, which she denied.

“Towards the end of Star’s life your anger and your rage were evident in your attitude towards Star, weren’t they,” Mr Ali asked.

Brockhill replied: “Definitely not.”

“You called her a very very nasty and naughty child, her general behaviour, not one incident,” Mr Ali continued.

Brockhill answered: “She was being nasty and naughty, biting people and herself; that is nasty behaviour.”

Mr Ali suggested Brockhill “couldn’t handle a toddler not doing what you said because you are obsessed with being in control”, which she denied.

He also pointed towards her calling Star a “brat who will wreck Smith’s life” in a text, and statements from detectives who said she called Star a brat in the hours after her death and the next day.

She said: “Brat is a very old term. It’s in Willy Wonka, it means spoilt.”

She told the court the detectives who said she called Star a brat were either lying or had “misheard or misunderstood”.

“I think if you’d heard that word you’d put it in your notes,” she said.

Mr Ali replied: “He didn’t write it down because it stuck in his mind, he told this court he was 100 per cent sure he heard the word ‘brat’ used.”

Mr Ali also asked Brockhill if she could “pack a punch”, to which she replied: “I have dropped men and women. Put them on their backside.”

Earlier in the day, the CCTV footage from the recycling plant, when the prosecution alleges Brockhill repeatedly struck Star, was played again to the court.

Brockhill admitted striking Star once at the recycling plant, a “backhanded slap to her cheek after Star wouldn’t stop biting herself”.

In clips where Brockhill appeared to be lunging towards Star, she said she was playing games, such as “the claw from the film Liar Liar” to try and calm Star down, or her hand had slipped off the seat.

She accepted making Google searches a short time after for ‘what happens when you are winded’, ‘what happens when the body isn’t getting enough oxygen’, and ‘can you die from being winded’.

Brockhill said these were made because “Star had thrown herself again and winded herself; she tried to climb into the front and fell between the two seats.”

Describing the events around Star’s fatal injury and death, Brockhill was visibly emotional in the witness stand.

She described hearing a thud and finding Star on the floor, Star going from floppy to rigid back to floppy, trying to bring her out of shock, performing CPR, calling the ambulance and the paramedics arriving and taking Star, who by this time was a “white, grey colour”, to the ambulance immediately.

She said searches made the day after Star’s death on her new phone for “spleen trauma grading” and other terms were made by her brother in law on her phone.

When asked if she killed Star, caused Star’s head injury, caused her broken tibia, or any of the other injuries found in the post-mortem, Brockhill said: “Absolutely not.”

When asked if she thought Frankie Smith had been causing serious injuries to Star, she replied: “No.”

The trial continues.