Teenager found guilty of murder after shaking girlfriend's baby to death
Warning: Readers may find the details in this article upsetting
A teenager has been found guilty of shaking his partner's four-month-old baby to death in Derbyshire.
Carl Alesbrook was 16 when he killed Elijah Shemwell, just seven weeks after meeting the child's mother, India Shemwell, in November 2021.
The now 19-year-old was found guilty of murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent a trial at Derby Crown Court.
Alesbrook, of Upper Greenhill Gardens, Matlock, denied causing any harm to Elijah but was unanimously convicted of both charges by the jury.
The court heard medical evidence showing Elijah had suffered brain damage and a bleed to the brain from shaking on three separate occasions, including on New Year's Day and January 2nd 2022.
Alesbrook denied the charges throughout police interviews and the trial.
Alesbrook told the court that he looked after Elijah alone while Shemwell was working away from her home in Acorn Drive, Belper, Derbyshire.
The court was told that days before Elijah was rushed to hospital on January 2, Alesbrook sent a Snapchat message to Shemwell calling her baby a “c***”, but he denied being “unduly angered or irritated” by the child.
The prosecution alleged the injuries took place while baby Elijah was left by his mother in the sole care of Alesbrook, between the months of mid-November 2021 and early January 2022 at Shemwell's home in Acorn Drive in Belper.
India Shemwall, aged 21 at the time of her son's death and now aged 23, was described as a "thoroughly inadequate mother" who neglected Elijah and failed to get him medical attention on January 1st and January 2nd.
But the prosecutor added that she does not believe Miss Shemwell caused any of the injuries to her baby.
The court was told that in the opinion of a consultant forensic pathologist, "in addition to shaking, there had been impacts to the face, either as the result of blows being delivered, or Elijah striking a surface."
The pathologist confirmed there is no plausible explanation for “the constellation of injuries present” other than from an assault.
A post-mortem examination was carried out and a cause of death was given as head injury, which led to cardiac arrest and further brain injury.
Prosecutor Vanessa Marshall KC, told the jury: "Rather than protect him, it is the prosecution’s case that instead, this defendant shook Elijah on at least two occasions, resulting in symptoms of brain damage and bleeding to the brain prior to a final shake on January 2, 2022, which caused catastrophic head injuries and his premature death a few days later at the QMC, Nottingham on January 5.
“You will also hear members of the jury that in addition to the head trauma, this defendant caused rib and limb fractures to Elijah’s body, one to two days prior to his admission to hospital on January 2, 2022.”Miss Marshall said Shemwell, who worked as a cleaner, and Alesbrook entered a relationship in mid-November, 2021, but she “remained emotionally and sexually involved” with her former partner, and father of Elijah, a man called Lee Varney.
She said: “This may well have caused this young defendant some understandable frustration at the uncertainty of the status of his relationship with the mother of Eli, and may have had some bearing on why the defendant treated Eli in the way the prosecution says he did.”
At an earlier hearing India Shemwell pleaded guilty to two counts of cruelty to a person under sixteen.
The pair will both be sentenced at a later date.
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