A five-year-old boy who was allegedly murdered by his mother, her partner and a teenager suffered brain trauma, damage to internal organs, internal bleeding and bruising from head to foot, a jury has heard.
A pathologist said that some of injuries suffered by Logan Mwangi before his death were so severe that they would have been expected in someone who had been in a road accident or had fallen from a height, while some were days or weeks old.
The court was also told that one particular type of injury to Logan’s abdomen was rare in children but had been found in abused youngsters.
Logan’s mother, Angharad Williamson, 30, his stepfather, John Cole, 40, and a 14-year-old boy who cannot be identified for legal reasons, deny murdering the boy, who was found in a river near his home in the village of Sarn in south Wales on 31 July last year.
As the hearing began on Monday, Caroline Rees QC, prosecuting, warned the jury at Cardiff crown court that they might find the evidence distressing.
Pathologist John Williams, who carried out a post mortem on Logan, said the boy was 3ft 5ins (104cm) tall and weighed just over 3 stone (19kg).
As Williamson sobbed in the dock, he told the jury he had identified 56 locations on Logan’s face, head, trunk, arms, legs, hands and feet where he had seen bruises, grazes, scratches or other marks. Some of the locations had more than one damaged area.
Williams said Logan suffered “deep scalp bruising” to the back of his head consistent with “blunt force head injury”. He said at least part of Logan’s head injury could have been suffered at least 36-40 hours before his death.
The pathologist said there was also evidence of “severe blunt force” injury to the abdomen including a tear to the liver and Logan had suffered bowel damage.
Williams said the type of abdominal injuries Logan had suffered were rare in children and found in victims of road crashes, falls from more than 10ft. He said an injury to the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine, had been recorded in abused children.
He added: “The constellation of injuries focused on the right upper quadrant of the abdomen is indicative of severe localised blunt force injury” and said the injuries could have been caused by “a blow or blows, a kick or kicks or impact or impacts with a weapon”.
George Lammie, a neuropathologist who examined Logan’s brain, said the trauma caused widespread bleeding and swelling. Asked what symptoms such injuries would cause, Lammie said: “If the brain continues to swell, brain dysfunction may manifest rapidly. This may manifest in headaches, nausea and vomiting, confusion or reduction in consciousness level. And if it continues it will cause a coma and then death.”
He added: “There appears to have been a significant period of survival after head injury and after critical reduction in blood to the brain. It appears to have been at least several hours. And it’s possible that there was more than one episode of head injury.”
The jury was told that Logan also had a broken collar bone, which showed signs of healing, though it was knitting together poorly. The pathologist said this injury was “at least several weeks old”.
It is alleged all the three defendants were involved in murdering Logan before concocting a cover-up that included dumping his body in the river and phoning the police to falsely report him missing,
Williamson and the teenager deny murder and perverting the course of justice, while Cole denies murder but admits the second charge.
The trial continues.
