A JURY was told today that murder accused Frankie Smith has a low IQ and is highly compliant and subservient by a clinical psychologist.

Eric Wright, a consultant clinical psychologist who has worked specifically in advising court cases for almost 30 years, told Bradford Crown Court that following two assessments he found Smith to have an IQ of 70.

He was giving evidence in the trial into the alleged murder of 16-month-old Star Hobson on September 22, 2020, when Star died from catastrophic abdominal injuries caused by blunt force trauma.

Frankie Smith, 20, of Wesley Place, Keighley, and Savannah Brockhill, 28, of Hawthorn Close, Keighley, both deny murdering Star, and also deny causing or allowing her death.

The average person’s IQ is between 90 and 109, and Mr Wright placed Smith’s between 67 and 75, straddling the ‘borderline’ and ‘extremely low’ sections and in the bottom two per cent of people for general intelligence.

Mr Wright also conducted tests to discern Smith’s level of compliance and suggestibility.

He found her to by in the top three per cent of most compliant people, and to be of low to average suggestibility.

He said compliance is “a behavioural term; it assesses whether someone would defer to a perceived authority figure, because they don’t like to upset them, and they tend to be more subservient”.

Smith’s score was “abnormally high”, and “there wouldn’t be many people less intelligent or more compliant than her”.

Under cross-examination from Kath Goddard QC, for Brockhill, Mr Wright confirmed that having a low IQ “wouldn’t prevent someone from lying”.

Under questioning from prosecutor Alistair MacDonald QC, Mr Wright said someone highly compliant in a courtroom would “want to avoid upsetting people, avoid confrontation, and defer to an authority figure by going along with what they’ve been told and being obedient”.

Throughout her defence, Smith has said she was told by Savannah Brockhill to tell police they had both entered the living room at the same time after hearing a bang on September 22, 2020.

Smith said she actually walked in to see Brockhill sat on the sofa holding a “winded” looking Star Hobson.

Under further cross-examination from prosecutor Mr MacDonald, Smith said she couldn't explain why police found the toilet in her flat clean and no used sanitary pad on the floor following the incident when Star died, after saying she had left the pad and not flushed the toilet after urinating when she heard a thud and a child say "Oh Star".

She also denied being responsible for Star's death, and dishing out "harsh physical punishment" alongside Brockhill after Star had ripped a signed ticket from her favourite band The Rubettes.

Being re-examined by her junior counsel Joseph Templeton, Smith accepted that videos shown during the trial of Star exhausted falling off a chair and into her bowl of food, Star crying while crawling up stairs and then being shouted at to stand facing a wall, and CCTV showing her dragging Star around Bradford city centre on September 20, 2020, constituted the criminal offence of cruelty.

The trial continues.