Drug dealer guilty of murdering partner's son, 3, after 'horrendous' campaign of abuse

12 April 2022, 13:54 | Updated: 12 April 2022, 14:19

A convicted drug dealer has been found guilty of murdering his partner's three-year-old son following a "horrendous" campaign of abuse.

Nathaniel Pope, of Evans Street, Wolverhampton, was found guilty by a jury after Kemarni Watson Darby died from abdominal injuries sustained at his mother's West Bromwich flat.

Kemarni died from injuries, including "multiple fractures to his skeleton", which were likened to those sustained from falling from a height or a severe car crash, Birmingham Crown Court heard.

His mother Alicia Watson, 30, of Raglan Road, Handsworth, was convicted of causing or allowing his death while she and Pope, 32, were also convicted on child cruelty charges.

The court heard Kemarni was sustained fatal injuries in a "brutal assault" that was just one of several he suffered while living with Watson and Pope.

He was found "lifeless" by paramedics at the West Bromwich home in Sandwell on 5th June 2018.

The prosecution claimed the couple were drug users and that there was a "constant smell of weed from the flat".

Prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC told the court some of Kemarni's "brutal" injuries caused "massive" internal bleeding and "would have required stamping on his body, if it were laying upwards with a shod foot".

"The degree of force required to cause these injuries would have resulted in extreme pain and fear. Throughout the assault, Kemarni would have been extremely distressed and fearful.

"Kemarni would not have been capable of walking normally or climbing stairs without showing distress. Any adult caring for Kemarni would have been aware of it."

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Jurors, many of whom shed tears as the verdict was read out, were told family members noticed the bruises on Kemarni's body in the weeks before his death but were told the three-year-old had been injured while fighting with other children, Birmingham Live reported.

Mr Badenoch said: "Urgent medical assistance was called at 3.49pm to attend to Kemarni at a two-bed flat in West Bromwich. On arrival, paramedics, arriving quickly, found Kemarni to be lifeless.

'At the time, Watson was following instruction to conduct CPR and she was noted to be extremely distressed. The man that was present in the flat, sitting in a chair close to Kemarni, did not say or do much.

"The efforts to save Kemarni's life proved fruitless and his death was confirmed at 5.05pm that same afternoon."

Mr Badenoch added: "[A pathologist] noted that Kemarni sustained horrendous injuries both that day and on earlier occasions. The injuries were evident both externally, so on the skin surface, and internally when a post-mortem examination was conducted.

"Amongst those injuries were multiple fractures to his skeleton, some of which would have required force akin to a road traffic accident or stamping on his body, if it were laying upwards, with a shod foot.

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"There was nothing to suggest that his small frame, body structures or blood constitution, was such as to render him unusually susceptible to injuries of this kind. He was a normal, boisterous, mischievous, three-year-old boy. 

"This was not the usual rough and tumble bruising on a child in the usual way of playgrounds, bumps, and the like."

Kemarni was found with bruises to his lungs, head, mouth, neck, arms, chest, abdomen, back and legs, the court heard.

Charles Sherrard QC, defending Watson, claimed she "never knowingly" exposed her son to abuse and said the fatal blows "can only and must have been inflicted by" Pope.

Mr Sherrard said: "Watson sits before you charged with what no mother could ever contemplate - the murder of her own child, the boy she gave birth to, cared for and yes, loved.

"She would do her best, not perfect, but always trying. Issues we take [are] with the prosecution's cherry-picked portrayal of her as a shocking, neglectful and some might say after [listening to the prosecution], a beast of a mother - and that is the overarching point we take issue with.

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"But of course, being a bad mother is not on the indictment. We ask you not to judge her until you have heard all the evidence."

He said Watson was known to smack Kemarni when he was "particularly naughty" but she otherwise "never wilfully did anything to her child to cause unnecessary suffering or harm."

"She would be strict, even smack, but nothing more than that."

Mr Sherrard also claimed Watson was not in the flat on 5 June, the day Kemarni was killed, and that she did not "have any idea of what appears to have been happening to him while she was out."