A dad has been jailed for life for murdering his 'undernourished' son. Michael Harrison inflicted fatal injuries on 11-year-old Mikey Harrison at his Derbyshire home last year.
The 41-year-old, who waited for almost four hours to call an ambulance, has been sentenced to a minimum term of 21 years and six months. Harrison pleaded guilty last month to the murder of Mikey Harrison, who died in hospital in June last year after paramedics were called to a country park.
Harrison leaned forward in his seat staring at the ground, shielding his face from the public gallery, during almost all of his two-hour sentencing hearing on Thursday. The court was told that he repeatedly punched Mikey, who weighed 3st 11lb, at his home on the morning of June 18, causing a fatal laceration to his liver.
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Harrison later drove to Heanor’s Shipley Country Park, phoned the ambulance service from his van and falsely claimed Mikey – who could have been saved by prompt treatment – had fallen from a tree. Ambulance service staff then arrived to find Mikey struggling for breath, but he went into cardiac arrest and was taken to hospital in Nottingham, where he was pronounced dead at 2.39pm.
Passing sentence at Derby Crown Court, Judge Shaun Smith KC told Harrison: “At 18 minutes past one on Saturday June 18 you embarked upon a charade solely intended to protect yourself. That was because you had attacked your 11-year-old son Mikey. You hit and punched him many times. At least one of those blows was so hard it lacerated his liver.
“Rather than face up to what you had done, you made a call to the ambulance service to report that Mikey had fallen out of a tree. What you did that morning ended the life of a little boy and emptied the lives of many others.”
The judge added that what happened during the assault was a result of Harrison “going crazy” as he damaged furniture and caused multiple blunt force injuries to Mikey.
After he was sentenced, Harrison, wearing a white T-shirt with “FAMILY” printed on the front, gestured towards members of the media and said: “I will always love my family no matter what you lot say. Put whatever version you like.”
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