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A man found guilty of murdering his partner’s three-year-old son after a week of “horrendous”beatings has been jailed for life and will spend a minimum of 24 years behind bars.
Convicted drug dealer 32-year-old Nathaniel Pope was found unanimously guilty of inflicting more than 20 rib fractures on defenceless Kemarni Watson Darby last month.
The injuries led led to his death.
The toddler was tragically found "lifeless" at home in West Bromwich, West Midlands, on June 5, 2018, after suffering what prosecutors describe as a "vicious, forceful assault".
The verdict was given by a Birmingham Crown Court jury in April after hearing evidence that little Kemarni’s body had 34 separate areas of external injuries.
Kemarni’s mother, 30-year-old Alicia Watson, was cleared of murdering her son but found guilty of causing or allowing the child’s death – she was given 11 years in prison for causing/allowing her son's death.
The four-month trial was told Watson and Pope – who blamed each other from the witness box – were “partners in crime” and continued to live together for several months after Kemarni’s death.
The youngster died from abdominal injuries on the afternoon of June 5 2018, after his ribcage was “crushed” at the couple’s two-bedroom flat in West Bromwich.
Pope, of Wolverhampton, and Watson, of Handsworth, Birmingham, were also convicted of a single court each of child cruelty to Kemarni between May 1 and June 5 2018, relating to the infliction of rib fractures and an abdominal injury prior to the fatal injury.
The pair were also separately convicted of two further counts of child cruelty in relation to other children.
In December 2021, Birmingham Crown Court heard that to punish three-year-old Kemarni Watson Darby, Nathaniel Pope would allegedly shut him in a bedroom by wrapping a door handle with a wire so he could not escape until he “calmed down”.
In an interview played to jurors during the trial, the witness said: “Pope used to get the wire and turn it around the door handle.
"It was like some electrical wire that was snapped off. He would wrap it around the door handle. Kemarni would just bang on the door and try and get out. [Pope] would just do nothing.”
In a statement, lead investigator Detective Inspector James Mahon said: “It’s been a horrific case for everyone involved and I’d like to extend my thanks to the jury, who have engaged and considered everything put before them, they are ordinary members of the public who have had to listen to the details of this case for over 10 weeks.”
“Kemarni was so young and would not have been able to explain what was happening, or the pain that he was feeling to those that cared for him.
“It’s absolutely awful that the two people who were supposed to look after him the most were those that caused injury, and in the end his death."
West Midlands Police did not provide any further comment after the sentencing when asked by the Daily Star.
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