A mother accused of murdering her five-year-old son while he was isolating with Covid screamed for help when she reported him missing, a jury has heard.
Angharad Williamson, 30, her partner John Cole, 40, and a 14-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, deny murdering Logan Mwangi between 28 July and 1 August.
At their trial at Cardiff crown court, the jury was played a recording of a 999 call made by Williamson on 31 July to report her son missing from their home in the village of Sarn, near Bridgend.
She is heard to scream “help me please” before saying she had woken up and found her son was not there.
During the 13-minute-long call, Williamson repeatedly suggests that another woman may have taken him. She said: “He can’t be on his own, there’s no parent with him, he must be scared.”
She tells the call handler: “My back gate is open, my back gate is open” before stating that her partner is out looking for Logan. She says: “Logan has had Covid for the past week so he has been in lockdown for the past week. He has never had symptoms. Please help me. He’s my baby. I can’t just stand here and do nothing. Please, I’m begging you. He’s my baby.”
Williamson, Cole and the 14-year-old are also accused of conducting a cover-up after his death which included dumping his body in the river like “fly-tipped rubbish”.
Williamson cried as the court was told of the moment Logan’s dead body was found in the River Ogmore by two South Wales police officers at 5.55am on 31 July. He had suffered 56 injuries to his head, face, torso, arms and legs, the jury heard.
Caroline Rees QC, prosecuting, said that when taken to see her son’s body in hospital, Williamson told a nurse “that she wished she’d taught him to swim”. She later asked another nurse why Logan was wet. Williamson claimed it was the first time she had been made aware of this, the court heard, which Rees said was considered an odd comment given her earlier statement about not teaching Logan to swim.
Rees told the hearing that medical experts had found Logan suffered catastrophic injuries to his abdomen, including lacerations to his liver and a tear to his bowel, as well as traumatic brain injuries.
Rees said the evidence was “capable of proving that Logan was subjected to a serious and sustained assault within the home over a period of time and possibly on more than one occasion”.
“It is incredible to consider that any person within that house – so that would include all of the defendants in this case – could have been unaware that the assault was going on or that Logan had been seriously injured and was at high risk of death.”
The court heard the three defendants made comments about the case after their arrests. Cole is said to have told a prison guard that he had a “moral dilemma”, while Williamson wrote a letter claiming that Cole had killed Logan, it was claimed.
The youth is alleged to have been observed singing: “I love kids, I fucking love kids, I love to punch kids in the head, it’s orgasmic.”
He is later claimed to have said: “I might plead guilty next week”.
Concluding her opening remarks Rees said: “We say that each defendant played their part in the death of a little five-year-old, Logan, and it is clear from the terrible injuries that he sustained that that must have been with the intention to kill or at the very least cause really serious injury.”
The trial continues.
