Kemarni Watson Darby’s injuries were comparable to a car crash or fall from a great height.
Image source, West Midlands Police
A man who murdered his partner’s three-year-old son after inflicting more than 20 rib fractures over weeks of beatings has been jailed for at least 24 years.
Jurors heard Nathaniel Pope caused injuries to Kemarni Watson Darby comparable to a car crash.
Along with Pope’s life term, Kemarni’s mother Alicia Watson received 11 years at Birmingham Crown Court for causing or allowing Kemarni’s death.
Mrs Justice Tipples said he had died after “a severe and sustained assault”.
The judge told 32-year-old Pope it would “have caused extreme distress and pain and that would have been obvious to you”.
“Kemarni was not your son and he did not mean anything to you. You saw him as a nuisance who got in the way of your relationship,” she said.
The judge told Watson, 31, she knew Pope had been injuring Kemarni with punches and kicks and had done nothing to stop it; and that she had also “regularly beat him hard” with her hands.
She said it had been “a particularly distressing and tragic case”.
Image source, Family
Kemarni’s father Darren Darby told the start of the sentencing hearing on Monday the pair had left him suffering “a true life sentence”.
In a statement about Kemarni, he said: “He had the potential to be so much. I will not get to be involved in the key moments of his life.”
Pope, a drug user and former warehouse worker from Wolverhampton, and Watson, of Handsworth, Birmingham, were also found guilty of child cruelty charges.
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