Parents Who Kill--Shocking True Stories of the World's Most Evil Parents (25 page)

I
t’s comparatively rare for a couple to both be charged with killing a child. As has been seen in earlier chapters, babies are most often murdered by a depressed or delusional mother, invariably when the husband is out at work, and older children are more likely to be killed by a vengeful father who knows that this destructive act will permanently wound his ex-wife.

Even if both parties
have
laid into the child with equal vigour, prosecutors will often encourage one to turn against the other – this tends to result in the woman testifying against her husband on the grounds that she will not be charged or will obtain a lesser sentence. But occasionally a couple will admit to joint violence, or the evidence against them will be so overwhelming that they are both found culpable by the judiciary.

The suffering that some children endure was highlighted after the August 2007 murder of a male toddler known only to the
public as baby P. The authorities tend to withhold the child’s name in such instances to hide the identities of other children in the same family.

Baby P was the fourth child of a married couple who had been together since the mother was 17. Shortly after his birth on 1 March 2006, she left her husband and took up with an illiterate skinhead, tattooed with Nazi emblems, who worshipped Hitler and was obsessed with pain. The man, who suffered from mental health problems, had tortured small animals throughout his childhood. She, in turn, lacked parenting skills and rarely did any housework so the family lived in squalor and the children were often left unattended and unfed.

The baby was seen with facial bruising and later with bruises to his buttocks and spine and his mother was arrested on two counts of abusing him. Health workers were concerned and he was given to one of her friends to take care of. The woman received a generous fostering allowance for this. But the mother wasn’t ultimately convicted of abusing the little boy so, in December 2006, when he was almost a year old, she was allowed to take him back. He now had less than eight months to live…

The chaotic household comprised the 27-year-old mother, her four children, her 32-year-old skinhead boyfriend and his friend and lodger, 36-year-old Jason Owen. The latter (who had three children from a previous relationship) soon moved in his 15-year-old girlfriend who had run away from home. The skinhead stepfather also had a Rottweiler called Kaiser, which he terrorised, and two pet snakes which he fed on rats and rabbits, often leaving dead and dismembered animals in the kitchen for the snakes’ next meal. He was cruel to all of his stepchildren but reserved the worst of his wrath for baby P, probably because his vulnerability
reminded him of his own unmet needs. (He had been bullied throughout his childhood.)

The stepfather repeatedly beat the baby and pulled out some of his fingernails then smeared chocolate digestives over him to hide the bruises. His mother put her boyfriend first and conspired to hide his condition from health and social workers. Every single one of his baby garments was stained with blood. The baby would only call for his mother for a moment or two as he knew from experience that she would rarely comfort him and he was so terrified of his stepfather that he would tremble every time the man entered the room The teenage babysitter later admitted that the skinhead would often go into the toddler’s nursery and shut the door, saying that he was trying to toughen the baby up. Meanwhile, his mother continued to neglect him and his siblings, and, as a result, both the baby and one of her daughters were on Haringey’s ‘at risk’ register.

The stepfather taught the little boy and the Rottweiler to lower their heads submissively to the floor when he clicked his fingers. He also wrapped the child up in layers of blankets so that he became seriously dehydrated and, on other occasions, forced him to jump up and down until he was crying with exhaustion. The child’s health deteriorated and he had an increasingly blank expression and sunken cheeks.

Social workers noticed that the baby was hungry, dirty and smelt of vomit and a neighbour admitted that she’d seen him sitting in the front garden, eating earth. He also had areas of bruising which his mother said he’d accumulated whilst playing with an 18-month-old child or when romping with the family dog. She understood how to deal with social workers as she’d encountered them throughout her own childhood when they wanted to take her away from her alcoholic
mother. In the end, the issue had been resolved by sending her to boarding school.

The neglect and abuse of the little boy continued, with the stepfather warning others in the household that they mustn’t comfort him or pick him up. The mother usually slept till lunchtime, which meant that her older children weren’t taken to school. And, in the afternoons, she often went back to bed with her lover whilst the baby remained in his cot, unchanged and unfed. He had lice and developed a scab on his head, whereupon his stepfather shaved off his beautiful blonde hair.

Social workers visited the faeces-smeared and flea-ridden apartment in Tottenham, North London, but failed to realise that the 32-year-old boyfriend was living there. In eight months, the family had 60 visits from doctors, social workers and police but no one made the decision to take the terrorised toddler into care.

One of the beatings left the 17-month-old with a broken back, leaving him paralysed below the waist, and eight broken ribs, but a paediatrician who examined him on 1 August 2007 failed to spot these injuries after he was referred to her for examination by a social worker. Two days later, he was punched in the face and swallowed a tooth. The following morning he was found dead in his blood stained cot – and still his stepfather remained unconcerned. His mother was equally blasé, for as paramedics tried to rush her son to hospital, she asked them to wait whilst she found her cigarettes. Meanwhile, the stepfather and lodger are believed to have removed a bag of blood-stained baby clothes and bedding from the house and hidden it. It has never been found.

At autopsy, the 17-month-old was found to have 50 distinct injuries, including severe head lacerations, a large gouge to his temple and a badly-split lip.

His mother, stepfather and the couple’s lodger were all
convicted of causing or allowing the boy’s death. Chillingly, the mother gave birth again in prison and was originally given contact with her new daughter, the visits only stopping when she was moved to a segregation unit in Holloway Prison. Journalists warned that she might be reunited with the child on her release from jail.

When word of her actions got out, the prison that she was being held in was put into lockdown as many of the 500 other female prisoners wanted to attack her. Prison officers posted comments on a Facebook page, saying what many other people were thinking, that she ought to be sterilised. A councillor said the same thing, prompting such an outcry that he was forced to resign.

By early December, several members of Haringey council had resigned or been suspended as an inquiry by Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary had found that the council had failed to spot children at risk, that there were significant weaknesses in child protection and that the council had failed to learn from the Victoria Climbie inquiry of 2003.

On 13 December 2008, campaigners marched through London to hand in a petition to Downing Street calling for ‘urgent far-reaching changes’ in Britain’s child protection laws.

Physically, sexually and emotionally abused throughout her own childhood, Leanne Labonte gave birth to her first baby when she was only 15. Social services, who had previously been monitoring the parenting skills of her alcoholic mother, became involved when she left the infant girl alone. Leanne was also well known to police as she had several convictions for shoplifting.

At 16, she became pregnant again but had an abortion.
Shortly after this, in June 1998, she met Dennis Henry, who was more than twice her age and had a record for violence, criminal damage and for living off immoral earnings. Three months later, she was pregnant with his child. Again, she considered having an abortion but changed her mind, though Dennis Henry would later say that she had further doubts about the pregnancy and tried to induce a miscarriage.

In June 1999, she gave birth to their daughter Ainlee but apparently rejected her at birth. The unfortunate child fared no better with her father as Dennis Henry was using crack cocaine and hitting both Leanne and her firstborn daughter. Yet the couple swiftly went on to have another child.

A mother of three whilst still in her teens, Leanne Labonte increasingly took her rage out on Ainlee. She wrote in her diary that she hated her second born, that she was ruining her relationship with Dennis Henry. She also wrote that Dennis was always bathing Ainlee and said she believed he was interfering with the child. (The autopsy would show no signs of sexual abuse.)

Social services were involved in the first few months of Ainlee’s life, but then the case was closed against the advice of health workers. A little over a year later the case was reopened, though Leanne Labonte managed to create a smokescreen by claiming that Ainlee’s surname was Walker rather than Labonte. The couple also stole medical notes from her file. A doctor who attended to the family asked for police protection during their visits as they were so intimidating. Social workers were also terrified as they were frequently attacked by both Henry and Labonte.

In the 18 months before Ainlee’s death, police visited her home on 53 occasions, often to deal with reports of domestic violence.

Meanwhile, social workers repeatedly failed to gain access to the couple’s Plaistow home in east London. Behind closed doors, they repeatedly hit and nipped the toddler, scalded her with hot water and burned her with cigarettes. They also starved her and she weighed half of what she should have done.

On 5 and 6 January 2002, Ainlee’s parents refused to give her anything to eat, despite the fact that there was food in the house and they had fed her two siblings. On the 7th, she died and the couple belatedly phoned an ambulance. Paramedics arrived to find the two-year-old lying on a kitchen table. She had 64 contusions on her emaciated body – some new, some healing – and, it was later established, had been abused almost from birth. She weighed only 21lbs.

Labonte and Henry were arrested at the hospital. In custody, they soon resorted to blaming each other. Leanne Labonte said that she hadn’t been in contact with Ainlee for a week, had only seen her injuries on the day of her death and had been horrified but too afraid to contact the authorities. Dennis Henry also claimed that he had no idea that his daughter was being abused.

Whilst on remand, Leanne sent him a love letter saying that she missed him and wanted to give him a blowjob. She added that she missed her two surviving children and blamed social services for sending her and Dennis Henry to jail.

The couple – she aged 20, he aged 39 – were found guilty of manslaughter at The Old Bailey in September 2002. She was sentenced to 10 years, with an eight-year sentence for cruelty to run concurrently. He was sentenced to 12 years, with a
nine-year
sentence for cruelty, also to run concurrently. She was given the lesser sentence because of her youth.

Afterwards, the chief executive of the NSPCC, Mary Marsh, said that the number of child killings in Britain were a national outrage. She called for greater integration between
agencies – but, as the subsequent cases show, it was a call which remained unheard.

By June 2007, Leanne Labonte had been moved to an open prison in Surrey and was working in a tearoom on a day release scheme. But, after a tabloid newspaper revealed her whereabouts, she was moved to a Lincoln jail and given work within the prison unit. Having served half of her sentence, she is likely to be paroled soon.

Aaron Gilbert, murdered at 13 months, suffered terribly during the last eight weeks of his life. His mother, Rebecca Lewis, stood by as her new boyfriend, Andrew Lloyd, swung the child around by his ears, bit his face and punched him in the head and body. He died of brain damage on 5 May 2005 after Lloyd battered him against the wall.

Just another case of cruelty to children, you might say. But this case made legal history because his mother was the first woman in Wales to be convicted of familial homicide. Prior to this law, women like Rebecca Lewis weren’t held accountable for letting their partner abuse their child.

As is usual in such cases, many adults in the vicinity knew that something was wrong. Aaron was seen to be badly bruised within days of 23-year-old Andrew Lloyd moving in with 21-year-old Rebecca Lewis, and neighbours soon noticed that the baby was terrified of the heavy-drinking man. A family friend heard Lloyd screaming ‘fucking shut up’ at Aaron and saw him blow cannabis smoke into the infant’s face.

Lloyd, who had suffered severe physical abuse during his own childhood and who had made two suicide attempts the previous year, clearly hated the baby. Psychiatric services knew that he’d been violent towards a previous partner’s child, the prison and probation services knew that he’d served a jail
sentence for Grievous Bodily Harm and social workers were tipped off that Aaron was covered in bruises. A total of seven agencies were involved with Andrew Lloyd but they didn’t share information and most didn’t know that he was living with Rebecca Lewis and her baby son.

Social workers received a phone call from a female cousin of Rebecca’s stating that Aaron was being abused, but they decided that the call could be malicious so opted not to visit the house. Three days later they wrote a letter to Rebecca. But they’d been given the wrong address and the letter didn’t reach the 21-year-old. She took her young son to the Accident & Emergency Department of her local hospital after Andrew Lloyd damaged Aaron’s arm, but ran out when questioned by doctors as to how he had sustained the injury. A member of staff planned to carry out a home visit but it was called off because of ill health. Rebecca’s cousin phoned again, telling social workers that Andrew Lloyd took drugs and that he’d been seen out with the baby at 2am. Again, they failed to react appropriately. Aaron now had eight days left to live.