Keegan Downer: Shocking pictures show horrific injuries found on murdered toddler's body

A toddler who was brutally killed by her legal guardian had more than 200 injuries when she died.

Keegan Downer had more than 153 scars, cuts and bruises dotted on her little body.

She also suffered broken bones, including a spinal leg fracture, which left her with one leg shorter than the other - and would have caused even the slightest movement agony.

A post-mortem revealed Keegan died from a combination of old head injuries, septicaemia and blunt chest trauma, but had suffered a catalogue of injuries in her short life.

More than 80 blood spatters were found on the walls near her cot and on the doors of a cupboard under the stairs.

But Kandyce Downer never sought medical help for the toddler and Keegan died last September weighing just 1 stone 3lbs.

Downer, who has four children of her own, was jailed for life after being found guilty of little Keegan's murder.

Sentencing her, Mrs Justice Patterson said Keegan had "suffered considerably in the last days and months of her life".

She added injuries to the 18-month-old's face and head would have been evident to her carers.

"These would have been caused by a hard slap, a punch or force feeding a bottle into her mouth."

On the day she died, Keegan collapsed after Downer left her home alone for more than two hours.

CCTV showed Downer driving to dump a blood-spattered spattered mattress, a baby-grow and pyjamas near a skip before she rang 999.

Prosecutor Nigel Power QC told the court by that time it was likely Keegan was already dead.

Downer, who has shown no remorse, was told she must serve a minimum of 18 years behind bars for the "barbaric" murder.

Jurors heard Keegan was removed from the care of her biological mother - a heroin addict - shortly after she was born.

She went to live with a foster family who described her as a "happy, healthy baby" before being being placed with Downer, a distant relative.

A serious case review has now been ordered by the Birmingham Safeguarding Children Board into Keegan's death.