A violent drug-user who murdered his partner’s three-year-old son after inflicting more than 20 rib fractures during weeks of “horrendous” beatings has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 24 years. A court heard that the force used by Nathanial Pope on Kemarni Watson Darby was similar to that normally caused by a car crash.
Convicted drug-dealer Pope, 32, was found guilty by a jury in April, following a five-month trial which heard that the little boy had 34 separate areas of external injuries. Kemarni’s mother, Alicia Watson, was cleared of murder but found guilty of causing or allowing his death.
Watson, 31, was also convicted of child cruelty and was given an 11-year prison term at the same sentencing hearing as Pope on Tuesday. Jurors heard that the couple, who blamed each other from the witness box, continued to live together for several months after Kemarni died from abdominal injuries in June 2018 when his ribs were “crushed” at their two-bedroom flat in West Bromwich.
