A man accused of murdering five-year-old Logan Mwangi has a string of previous convictions including for violence and once claimed he was an ex-special forces soldier, a jury has been told.
John Cole, who is on trial alongside Logan’s mother, Angharad Williamson, and a 14-year-old boy, has convictions including assault causing actual bodily harm, battery and possessing a blade in public as well as offences of dishonesty.
The jury at Cardiff crown court was told the offences, which also included witness intimidation, blackmail and resisting a police officer, dated back to between 1999 and 2007.
Cole, 40, Williamson, 30, and the teenager, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, deny murdering Logan, whose body was found in a river near his home in the village of Sarn in south Wales on 31 July last year, having suffered more than 50 injuries.
The prosecution alleges all 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.
Jurors also heard on Tuesday from a man called Ethan Bevan who met Cole on the online video game Fortnite. Bevan said Cole told him he had a 99-year suspended jail sentence hanging over him. The prosecution said in fact Cole had been given no such sentence. Bevan also said that Cole had told him he was ex-special forces.
Asked why he had told him he had been given the suspended jail term, Bevan said: “I didn’t know if he was trying to come across as the kind of person not to be messed with.”
The trial continues with the defence expected to begin on Wednesday.
