Kemar Brown, 28, has been found guilty of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s two-year-old son after his period of sustained abuse was captured on secret mobile phone recordings.
Gatekeepers News reports that Brown, who risks life behind bars, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of killing Kyrell Matthews after subjecting him to months of beatings and taunting at a one-bedroom flat in Thornton Heath, south London.
The Metropolitan Police’s Detective Chief Inspector Kate Kieran said Brown would abuse the child ‘almost for fun’ and treated little Kyrell ‘like a punchbag in the gym’.
The toddler’s mother Phylesia Shirley, 24, who previously worked in child services at Croydon Council, was acquitted of murder but found guilty of manslaughter.
The court had previously heard snippets from the chilling moment Shirley phones 111 for advice rather than 999 as she nonchalantly tells the operator her son’s body is ‘going floppy’ and his eyes are ‘rolling back’.
Asked what was wrong with him, she casually explains: “Basically Kyrell has been acting really funny. Like, his body is flopping, and his eyes are rolling back and his chest is not breathing.”
The child, who was non-verbal, had 41 rib fractures by the time he died at Croydon University Hospital on October 20, 2019, as well as internal bleeding and a 1.6in (4cm) cut to his liver.
Jurors were told the ‘happy and smiley’ toddler was likely subjected to a ‘significant period of abuse’ – with non-fatal injuries occurring after at least five separate attacks over a 28-day period.
Little Kyrell would still have been able to express the pain he had endured throughout the final days of his life despite being non-verbal, the court heard.
Officers were able to uncover audio evidence of both adults hitting Kyrell on multiple occasions by listening through secretly mobile phone recordings made by Shirley because she suspected her partner was cheating on her.
Audio files were played during the five-week trial in which Kyrell could be heard screaming as he was repeatedly beaten by Brown – who at once stage mimics the child’s cries.
