When the ‘evil scumbag’ who killed the baby of Danielle Simpson appeared as a suggested Facebook friend, she froze still.
There he was; the person who led to her having to identify the body of her six-month-old as he lay ‘dead on a slab’.
Sherwain Smith had taken Baby Troy from his cot in February 2006 and later dumped him in a stream near his home in Smethwick.
Troy's tiny body was later found wrapped in a bin bag, however, Smith is the only one who will ever know how he was killed.
Now, Smith appears on social media with a selfie from a hospital as his profile photo, according to Birmingham Live.
The furious mum-of-three, who relives the ordeal ‘every minute of the day’, says he has been allowed to ‘live a normal life’ as he serves an order of imprisonment for public protection for the killing.
“He’s on Facebook - and he’s a baby killer,” the 33-year-old said. “It needs to be put out there that he’s Sherwain Smith and he killed my baby.
“I’ve got to live with it for the rest of my life. Four months after he was killed I went and saw my son - he was rotting.
“I wanted to go and say bye to my son. He made me look at my baby when he was dead on a slab. I’m left with that now and he’s allowed out of jail and to do normal things; is this f****** real?”
Smith, who denied any involvement in Troy’s death, was cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter. He was also told he could never work with children again after his sentence.
“I froze, I couldn’t believe it,” she added, breaking down in tears. “I have messaged the account saying, ‘you’ve got f****** Facebook you piece of s***’. I went mental to be honest.
“I cannot actually believe that this is being allowed to happen. I’ve reported the Facebook account, they don’t get back to you.
“He tried to hide Troy, he tried to cover up what he did. He doesn’t even deserve to live, in my opinion. You can’t do something like that and expect to live a normal life.”
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust said it couldn’t comment on individual cases, but “any restrictions on an individual’s liberty need to be appropriate and proportionate according to the patient’s stage in their care pathway”.
Danielle was just 17 when her baby boy was killed by her then partner of a year - a man who did ‘everything a normal parent’ would for their baby.
“There was nothing alarming, nothing that I could see coming,” she recalled. “He used to change his nappy, he used to sort his bottles.
“I wanted my son to have a family and that’s all I was seeing. I was young and I wish I could go back and just start over again and just have my boy on my own.”
Danielle had been staying over at his flat on her ‘first night’ away from Troy, who was at home with her mum, when tragedy struck. His little body was found wrapped in a bin liner inside a plastic JD Sports bag in a culvert beside Thimblemill Brook on February 8 - a day after he was reported missing.
She recalled: “I fell asleep on the sofa. I remember waking up and he was sat on the end of the sofa. He’d just been out of that house, killed and dumped my baby and he was sitting right next to me.”
The following morning, she headed back to the house where there was a letter on the table from her mum, reading: “You could have told me you came and got Troy” she added, sobbing.
Knowing Troy wasn’t there and wasn’t with her mum, she called her sister. And when she failed to answer, a panicked Danielle visited her niece’s school to ask if she knew whether her sister had Troy.
“I got in touch with mum asking ‘where’s Troy’, then I just collapsed to my knees and I knew he was gone. In my heart I knew he was gone, I knew I was never going to see him alive again.
“When I went to report him missing, we never got out of the police station. We were arrested on suspicion of murder and perverting the course of justice.”
While being held in the police station, she discovered via the radio that Troy’s little body had been found. Danielle and her mum were cleared of all charges relating to Troy’s killing.
She added: “It destroys your whole soul. You can’t even move on from it, you can’t get past it. You can learn how to deal with the pain and live with it, but it doesn’t go and it doesn’t get better.”
After his death, the traumatised mum was in and out of ‘every hostel in Birmingham’, found herself taking drugs to numb the pain and even lived on the streets for two and a half years.
“After everything happened I went a bit crazy. I was absolutely traumatised and alone in this big wide world and no one gave a s***.
“I didn’t care about rules and regulations. I was absolutely destroyed. I got kicked out of the hostel.
“I was just drinking and smoking weed a lot,” she continued, struggling to compose herself.
Pathologists at the time were unable to find how Baby Troy died. And mystery still surrounds exactly how the tot came to meet his death.
“I know he wasn’t suffocated. I know he wasn’t drowned. I don’t know how he was killed, I don’t know what he did to my boy,” she said, choking back tears.
“It’s sending me crazy. I think about it every minute of the day.”
Danielle, who now has three young sons under the age of ten, told how her youngest boy was the “spitting image” of Troy. But she will never see how he would have looked or watch him meet his milestones.
“My big lad has light brown eyes. And that’s how Troy would’ve been,” she explained.
“With my littl’un now, he’s the spitting image of Troy. The way he smiles, the way he laughs, it’s comforting for me.”
“Every time I look at my sons, I think about my boy. Troy is my boy too. He matters just as much as those boys downstairs, but it don’t seem like he does. He’s been forgotten about now.”
To keep his memory alive, she keeps one of his blankets with her, but photos of the little one are too much to bear.
“My boys, there’s a photo I have of Troy and they always put it up in his bedroom. Whenever I see it, it just breaks my heart because he’s not here,” she said.
“He’d be 16 now and he’d be getting up to all sorts. Girlfriends, things he shouldn’t be doing, getting up to no good like a normal 16-year-old boy. Just the normal things I’m never going to see.”
Asked about Smith being allowed on Facebook, a Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust spokesperson added: “Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust cannot comment on the care of individual patients. Any restrictions on an individual’s liberty need to be appropriate and proportionate according to the patient’s stage in their care pathway.
“Where appropriate, we would advise any individuals who have concerns to contact their respective victim liaison officer for advice and support.”
Its internet policy states that it “acknowledges the importance of internet access in everyday life” and aims to support access for service users “where it is safe to do this”.
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
