A man who murdered his ex-girlfriend's two-year-old son has been jailed for life, following a trial that heard horrific abuse captured on secret recordings. Kyrell Matthews died in October 2019 with 41 rib fractures and internal injuries after weeks of cruelty by Kemar Brown and Phylesia Shirley at his south London home.
Brown, 28, was convicted of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 25 years. Shirley, 24, was found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 13 years. Much of the abuse was caught on audio recordings made at the property in Thornton Heath, which were played to the jury.
The toddler could be heard crying and screaming on files taken from Shirley's phone, which picked up the sound of Kyrell being hit repeatedly, with Brown saying 'shut up' and 'you have to ruin the fun'. Another recording caught Shirley striking her son, causing him to break down in distress.
Prosecution barrister Edward Brown QC told jurors that the mother put her relationship with Brown above her own child. The couple, who were unemployed at the time of Kyrell's murder, were both cannabis users and are understood to have been visited by social services at least once.
Paying tribute to Kyrell outside court, his paternal step-grandmother Christine Ernest described the two-year-old as 'the most loving little boy, always smiling'. During the trial, jurors were not told that police had been called to an earlier domestic incident but no offences were identified and Kyrell was said to have appeared 'safe and well'.
