A mother accused of stabbing her three-year-old daughter to death and dousing her in acid made a series of frantic 999 calls to police the day before the child’s body was found, a court heard

The body of Alia Ahmed Jama was discovered by police at the home she shared with her mother Iman Omar Yousef, 25, in Erdington, Birmingham, in February.

The jury at Birmingham Crown Court were told Iman Yousef, who was charged with murder, had been found unfit to plead because she was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

However they must decide whether the 25-year-old Somalian national committed the act of killing Alia Ahmed Jama.

James Burbidge QC, prosecuting, said that the defendant and her daughter, who came to the UK in 2007, lived at an address for those claiming asylum in Milverton Road, Erdington.

DCI Tim Bacon from West Midlands Police, told the jury that the two police officers who discovered Alia’s body on February 13 had attended the property the previous evening after Yousef made six calls to police claiming there were people outside her home trying to get in.

Officers who forced their way into the Erdington address the following day were met with the “shocking sight” of the little girl in a first floor bedroom. The court heard that one of the police officers who found Alia’s body collapsed at the scene.

Alia had been stabbed repeatedly and a corrosive agent had been thrown over her which had melted her skin.

Mr Justice Flaux said witnesses had spoken of Yousef being possessive towards Alia and went on: “The evidence was that the child was well nourished. There is no evidence of neglect or ill treatment. She clearly loved the child.”

However a housing officer had expressed her concerns about the welfare of Alia because of her mother’s mental health problems and had passed on these concerns to social services who visited the defendant on February 12.

The case continues.