A Mapperley dad who 'went crazy' beat his young son to death before lying that he had fallen from a tree playing hide and seek. Michael Harrison, 41, punched his 11-year-old son Mikey repeatedly to the body, causing a laceration to the youngster’s liver on June 18, 2022, Derby Crown Court heard.
Harrison, who was living in Heanor at the time but was more recently of Eaton Terrace in Mapperley, then drove them both to a street close to Shipley Park, close to the Nottinghamshire border, and called an ambulance to say Mikey had fallen out of a tree while playing hide and seek. As reported by Derbyshire Live, he then cleared the property of all its belongings to cover his tracks, but a witness came forward and told police a different version of how Mikey may have come to his death, resulting in a murder investigation being launched.
Jailing Harrison for life and telling him it will be 21 and a half years until he will be eligible to apply for parole, Judge Shaun Smith KC said: “You embarked on a charade with the intent to protect yourself. That was because you had attacked your 11-year-old son, Mikey. You had hit and punched him a number of times and one of those punches was so hard it caused a laceration. You then tried to cover your tracks.
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"Mikey did not die straight away. According to a pathologist, he would have developed increasing pain and nausea prior to his death. (The pathologist concluded) he may well have survived with prompt and appropriate treatment. What you did that morning ended the life of a little boy.
"Whatever happened was as a result of you going crazy."
Peter Joyce KC, prosecuting, said shortly before 1.20pm on Saturday, June 18, 2022, Harrison made an emergency 999 call to EMAS to report his son had fallen from a tree in Shipley Park, Heanor. He said when emergency services arrived they found Mikey sitting in the front passenger seat of the defendant's van.
The prosecutor said: “The little boy was struggling with his breathing. He was taken to the QMC where, despite the best efforts, he was pronounced dead at 2.39pm. He was 11 years old and weighed three stone 11lbs.”
Mr Joyce said in the days after, police tried to speak to Harrison about the events that led to the fall but that he refused to speak to them. He said on June 20, a detective went to the Heanor address where they were living.
The prosecutor said: "The defendant said he had been on a day out with Mikey at Shipley Park and they were playing hide and seek. The defendant said he had not seen Mikey climb a tree but heard him fall. This entire account of the fall was utter fiction.
"This was made up by the defendant to cover up the fact that he himself had fatally injured his son and was attempting to cover up his actions by taking him to the park. The defendant made every attempt to cover up what happened, the bungalow where they lived was visited by crime scene investigators on June 30, all of the windows were open and the house had been stripped of almost every item one would expect to find in a home. The meter was missing and there was no power to the premises."
Mr Joyce said the initial post-mortem examination found a large number of bruises and grazes "all of recent origin" as well as a laceration to Mikey's liver. He said: "The laceration had caused a significant bleed, there was one-and-a-half litres of blood on Mikey's stomach capacity."
A second examination concluded there was "multiple blunt force trauma and injuries to his face, head, arms, back and neck." Mr Joyce said: "The conclusion is that the injuries were not explained by a single fall, he had a number of blunt force trauma injuries to a number of areas of his body." A cause of death was given as a laceration to the liver caused by multiple blunt force injuries.
Mr Joyce said an expert paediatrician, also brought in, concluded that Mikey "may well have survived had he received prompt treatment".
Harrison pleaded guilty to murder at a hearing on April 3 at the same court. A victim impact statement, read to the court by Judge Smith, has told how Mikey "loved singing and lining up his teddies in his bedroom". It read: "Mikey was special, beautiful and creative."
Vanessa Marshall KC, mitigating, said that her client failing to call an ambulance or take Mikey to a hospital despite his son needing urgent help was "unforgivable". She said Harrison was kidnapped and "severely stabbed" by a gang in 2006 and had rented the Heanor address where they were living at the time Mikey died under a false name to keep them safe.
Miss Marshall said: "This was a man who lost control for whatever reason, lashed out and now must live with the consequences. Mr Harrison is full of remorse for what he has done but knows that remorse will never bring back his beloved son. He genuinely wishes to say sorry."
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