A mother accused of starving her seven-year-old daughter to death claimed the child had been possessed by an evil spirit, a court heard.

Birmingham Crown Court was told that Angela Gordon, charged alongside her partner Junaid Abuhamza with the murder of Khyra Ishaq, said the spirit was controlling the child’s body after she “accepted it as a friend”.

Jurors were shown footage of a police interview with a 13-year-old boy who was in the care of Gordon and Abuhamza at the time of Khyra’s death on May 17 last year.

Speaking to officers the following day, the boy told how Khyra had spent most of the two days leading to her death asleep, not even waking as her mother bathed her.

He said that he returned home from school to find Khyra lying asleep in her mother’s lap in an upstairs bedroom.

He said Gordon had told him Khyra had “dropped down” as she walked after a spirit “got into her body”.

He said the spirit was black and evil, adding: “(Gordon) said it was trying to control her body because Khyra accepted it as a friend.

“When I came in the room she (Gordon) told me she (Khyra) was walking and she just dropped down into the floor.

“They were spraying her face with water trying to wake her up.