dailystar.co.uk
24.05.2022 / 14:41
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Cruel thug who murdered partner's son in 'horrendous' cruelty campaign jailed for life
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