A child killer who murdered his girlfriend’s two-year-old son has bagged a lifetime jail term with a minimum term of 25 years after the couple’s horrific abuse was captured on secret recordings.
Gatekeepers News reports that the baby – Kyrell Matthews was left with 41 rib fractures and internal injuries by the time of his death in October 2019 after weeks of cruelty at the hands of Kemar Brown and mother Phylesia Shirley, the Old Bailey heard.
Brown, 28 (the boyfriend) was convicted of murder after a trial earlier this month.
Although, Shirley (the girlfriend and mother of the deceased) was acquitted of murder but found guilty of the alternative charge of manslaughter.
The couple appeared alongside each other in the dock on Friday as Brown was sentenced to at least 25 years in prison while Shirley was jailed for 13 years.
In an audio file taken from Shirley’s phone and played to jurors during the trial, the toddler, who was non-verbal, could be heard crying and screaming on distressing.
Multiple recordings taken over the final weeks of his life picked up the sound of Kyrell being hit repeatedly, with Brown saying, “Shut up,” and “You have to ruin the fun.”
Another recording caught Shirley striking her son and causing him to break down in distress.
Prosecutor Edward Brown QC told jurors that the mother put her relationship with Brown above her own child.
The couple, who have been visited by social services at least once were unemployed at the time of Kyrell’s murder and were both cannabis users.
Brown told jurors, “(Shirley) was prepared to reject what should have been motherly care in protecting Kyrell in favour of abuse by her – his own mother – and in favour of the abuse carried out by a man she knew was abusing her child.
“The truth is that his death came when once more he was abused in that flat, once more in a very similar way, causing very similar injuries, except on this occasion it was so much more serious, the abuse and the results were catastrophic.”
In a 111 call made after Kyrell collapsed at home on October 20, 2019, Shirley sobbed as she was told by a clinical adviser to use both hands and ‘push down fast’ and ‘go for it’.
However, both defendants, from separate addresses in Thornton Heath, declined to give evidence during the trial, but the court heard Brown’s defence was that the injuries inflicted were the result of incorrect advice from the operator on how to resuscitate Kyrell.
