I have seen many cases of a mother murdering her child and it amazes me. Even today, the cases are everywhere.   A court hears that a woman and her boyfriend murdered a ‘defenseless’ two-year-old boy after suffering a ‘catalogue of very significant’ injuries in the weeks leading up to his death.

According to prosecutors, ‘very forceful squeezing or blows’ allegedly caused 41 rib fractures, significant internal bleeding, and bruising in two-year-old Kyrell Matthews as he died.

Phylesia Shirley, the boy’s mother, and her then-boyfriend, Kemar Brown, deny murdering Kyrell on October 20, 2019, at Shirley’s home in Thornton Heath, south London.

Kyrell died a month after his second birthday, after Shirley and Brown had been dating for about a year. Kyrell did not attend a nursery and was thus in the full-time care of his mother, Shirley, who was 21 at the time. However, jurors were told that Brown spent almost all of his time at Shirley’s one-bedroom flat and frequently slept over.

The court heard that neither defendant was employed during the time leading up to Kyrell’s death.

‘They therefore had constant and consistent care of the child,’ prosecutor Edward Brown QC told jurors at the Old Bailey today. You immediately grasp the significance of the situation.

‘What you will hear in the evidence amounts to nothing less than a deliberate pattern of repeated and significant assaults on an entirely defenseless and young child.’

‘And it will come as no surprise to you that the effect of these injuries would have been real pain, not only at the time of infliction, but also after and after each violent episode,’ says the author.

‘It is the prosecution case that the defendants Phylesia Shirley or Kemar Brown or both of them inflicted the injuries on that very young child,’ he added.

Mr Brown believes Kyrell had been suffering from injuries for ‘weeks before his death.’

‘In addition to the five broken ribs likely inflicted when he was injured so badly that the injuries killed him, he was found to have a total of 36 additional rib fractures in the days and weeks leading up to his death,’ he told jurors.

‘Some of the ribs had been re-fractured.’

‘And it should come as no surprise that these injuries would have caused real pain, not only during their infliction, but also after and after each violent episode.’

Phylesia Shirley, 24, and Kemar Brown, 28, both of Thornton Heath, deny murdering the ‘defenceless’ boy.