Mum and ex-boyfriend guilty of murdering toddler in night of ‘violent discipline’ | UK News

The mother of an 18-month-old boy and her former boyfriend have been found guilty of murdering him.

Alfie Phillips was beaten to death and smothered in an attack by mum Sian Hedges, 27, and 35-year-old Jack Benham in his caravan near Faversham in Kent.

Alfie was found with a ‘myriad of bruises’, broken ribs, a broken arm and leg, and traces of cocaine in his body after the couple took the drug and drank whisky during the night of ‘violent discipline’.

His body was found ‘blue and floppy’ on the morning of November 28, 2020, and paramedics said it was ‘immediately apparent’ Alfie had been dead for some time.

The jury took 10 hours to reach a unanimous guilty verdict following a trial at Maidstone crown court. Both Hedges and Benham face life imprisonment for his murder.

Prosecutor Jennifer Knight KC had told jurors: ‘It is clear that he had been deliberately injured on more than one occasion, culminating in an assault perpetrated on him during the night of November 27-28, 2020, that led to his death.

‘Jack Benham and Sian Hedges were in the caravan together throughout the night.

‘Had either defendant not been joining in with the assaults, that defendant who was not part of it would have stopped the attack and removed Alfie Phillips from the caravan, and from the presence of the other who was carrying out these attacks.

‘The fact that this did not happen can only be because both defendants agreed that the assaults should take place.

‘They both agreed in meting out some sort of aggressive, violent discipline to Alfie that night which resulted in his death.’

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