Killer who broke baby son’s neck jailed for life
A FATHER who left his month-old baby son to die after inflicting on him a ‘brutal’ catalogue of injuries, including a broken neck, was jailed for life yesterday.
Michael Davis, 29, was ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years behind bars after a campaign of abuse towards his son Ollie in which the infant suffered injuries of the kind usually seen in a ‘high energy car crash’.
He suffered 40 broken bones, including 23 broken ribs, a ‘devastating’ spinal injury and brain injuries in a spree of ‘overnight’ violence lasting a week or more.
His mother Kayleigh Driver stood by and did nothing to save him. The 31-year-old was cleared of murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent but found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child.
She was sentenced to seven years behind bars after Mr Justice Cotter accepted she did not cause any of her son’s injuries, and showed her mercy due to a chronic neurological condition which saw the defendant attend their trial at Leicester Crown Court on a mobility scooter.
During the sentencing at Loughborough Court yesterday, Mr Justice Cotter said he was sure that Davis had caused all the injuries during four separate night-time ‘episodes’ of violence after he became ‘ angry and frustrated’.
The judge said: ‘You assaulted him on multiple occasions. The attacks in their various forms were also brutal – in particular the fatal neck injury.’
The couple were living together in Leicester when Ollie was killed. The child’s lifeless body was found in his cot in October 2017. He died soon after arrival at Leicester Royal Infirmary.
Driver, who the court heard has a mental age of just over 11 years, has three older children who now live with their father.
Davis was found guilty of murder and two counts of grievous bodily harm last month after a two-month trial.
Ricky Driver, Ollie’s grandfather, said the nature of Ollie’s death ‘shook the family to the core’ and left them ‘sick to our stomachs’.