EXCLUSIVE: Jo Early, 54, said it was wrong that Gavin Gibbs was entitled to remain in contact with their daughter Abi, 18, after he was jailed for causing grievous bodily harm to her brother, Charlie
The mother and twin of a baby who died after his dad broke his arm are campaigning for parents who seriously harm their children to be banned from having access to them or their siblings.
Jo Early, 54, said it was wrong that Gavin Gibbs was entitled to keep in contact with their daughter Abi, 18, after he was jailed for causing grievous bodily harm to her brother, Charlie.
Gibbs whispered “please forgive me” as Charlie’s life support machine was turned off in hospital in October 2008.
He was later cleared of murdering the three-month-old but convicted of breaking his arm.
Currently parental responsibility is only removed when a person is convicted of killing their partner under “Jade’s Law” named after Jade Ward, 27, who was murdered in her home in Shotton, Flintshire, by Russell Marsh in 2021.
Jo is now calling for parents who murder or cause serious harm to their children to be included in the ban.
She told the Mirror: “I don’t want any other family to go through what we’ve gone through because when a perpetrator has access to a very young child the psychological damage that that does can rob them of their childhood.
“I just wanted to bring my daughter up but the process leaves you scarred for life.” Abi, who received messages and presents from Gibbs twice a year until turning 18 last week, said: “He used to put his aftershave on the cards and I would open them and just smell it. That can be so confusing for anyone let alone a young girl.
“The way I felt when I was a kid, it gave me something to fantasise about, the idea of having a dad. All the little girls at school had one who loved them and was there for them and was there for them, I had nothing.
“I didn’t have a dad, so receiving cards from someone called Daddy was exciting, yet heart-breaking all at the same time. I think what my mum’s doing is going to be life changing for future victims. I think had I not had all of this from him I think my life would look very different and for the better so I think that it is vital for this new law to be put in place.”
Gibbs was sentenced to three years for grievous bodily harm. Following a successful appeal, it was reduced to two years. He was released after 11 months.
Jo asked Gibbs to give up his parental responsibility which gave him legal rights over Abi but he would only do so on condition she allowed him access to her.
Jo is now campaigning for those rights to be removed automatically in such cases and has lobbied Baroness Alison Levitt KC and Victims’ Rights Commissioner Claire Waxman.
She is calling for the changes to be introduced in the Courts and Tribunals Bill currently going through parliament or in a separate Parental Responsibility Act.
Jo met her former husband at the London Ambulance Service, where she worked in the control centre in Waterloo and he was a paramedic.
On July 23, 2008, she gave birth to twins. Jo said: “It was the happiest day of my life, I was over the moon because I had a little girl and a little boy, they were twins. It was just so perfect we had this complete family.”
But three months later Abi was admitted to Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, with bronchiolitis.
That night she got a phone call to say that Charlie was downstairs in A&E and he’d stopped breathing.
Jo said: “I saw him lying there and the doctors were working on him on this metal thing and I just collapsed and my legs stopped working and I was put into a wheelchair. I just couldn’t believe this was happening.”
Charlie was put on a life support machine and Jo went with him in an ambulance to Kings College hospital in Camberwell, South London. “I was just watching this nurse’s hand pump oxygen to him all the time and I was thinking ‘please don’t stop’.”
Soon after arriving at hospital doctors said there was no sign of life and the life support machine would be switched off.
“We said our goodbyes and I just couldn’t believe he was gone,” Jo said.
Jo first defended Gibbs when he became a suspect, not being able to believe he could have harmed their child.
But that changed months later when he changed his story and said that Charlie had fallen off the sofa three weeks before he died. Jo hasn’t spoken to him since.
Gibbs, of Erith, Kent, told an Old Bailey jury that he said sorry to his infant son as he died because he had not been able to save him.
The court heard that 17 days before Charlie died in hospital from brain damage, Gibbs deliberately twisted and broke his arm.
Sentencing him for the attack, Judge Timothy Pontius told him: “I put aside the remaining charges of which in their merciful verdicts the jury has acquitted you.”
But he added: “Such an appalling act of violence by a powerfully-built man upon a helpless baby merely weeks old must be punished by an immediate prison sentence.”
After Charlie died, it was discovered that he had a fractured skull, a broken arm and a broken leg.
Victims Commissioner for England and Wales, Claire Waxman OBE, is backing Jo’s campaign. She said: “I welcome the positive steps this Government is taking to better protect victims and children, with Jade’s Law soon to be implemented and the Courts and Tribunals Bill removing the presumption of parental involvement in the Family Courts.
“However, I am clear that Government has more work to do, as we continue to see cases like these [referring to Jo’s case], where abusive parents retain parental responsibility despite the most serious offending.”
Sign Jo’s petition on this link.
