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| Kemarni Watson Darby: Mum and partner jailed after boy's killing | Kemarni Watson Darby: Mum and partner jailed after boy's killing |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Alicia Watson and Nathaniel Pope blamed each other for Kemarni's death | |
| A man who murdered his partner's three-year-old son after inflicting more than 20 rib fractures over weeks of beatings has been jailed for at least 24 years. | A man who murdered his partner's three-year-old son after inflicting more than 20 rib fractures over weeks of beatings has been jailed for at least 24 years. |
| Jurors heard Nathaniel Pope caused injuries to Kemarni Watson Darby comparable to a car crash. | Jurors heard Nathaniel Pope caused injuries to Kemarni Watson Darby comparable to a car crash. |
| Along with Pope's life term, Kemarni's mother Alicia Watson received 11 years at Birmingham Crown Court for causing or allowing Kemarni's death. | |
| Mrs Justice Tipples said he had died after "a severe and sustained assault". | |
| The judge told 32-year-old Pope it would "have caused extreme distress and pain and that would have been obvious to you". | |
| "Kemarni was not your son and he did not mean anything to you. You saw him as a nuisance who got in the way of your relationship," she said. | |
| The judge told Watson, 31, she knew Pope had been injuring Kemarni with punches and kicks and had done nothing to stop it; and that she had also "regularly beat him hard" with her hands. | |
| She said it had been "a particularly distressing and tragic case". | |
| Judge Mrs Justice Tipples said the physical abuse of Kemarni "became an accepted course of conduct in the flat." | |
| Kemarni's father Darren Darby told the start of the sentencing hearing on Monday the pair had left him suffering "a true life sentence". | |
| In a statement about Kemarni, he said: "He had the potential to be so much. I will not get to be involved in the key moments of his life." | In a statement about Kemarni, he said: "He had the potential to be so much. I will not get to be involved in the key moments of his life." |
| Pope, a drug user and former warehouse worker from Wolverhampton, and Watson, of Handsworth, Birmingham, were also found guilty of child cruelty charges. | |
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