When child killer Carl Alesbrook broke ribs and limbs on four-month-old Elijah Shemwell, he was sixteen yeaus of age. He also caused massive brain damage to the baby. Carl Alesbrook was convicted of murdering the baby.
Now 19, child killer and molester Carl Alesbrook caused severe bone fractures, whiplash-type injuries, and bleeding on the brain seven weeks after meeting fellow paedophile India Shemwell, the mother of the kid, in November 2021.
Denounced as not having harmed Elijah, Alesbrook of Upper Greenhill Gardens, Matlock in Derbyshire, was found unanimously guilty of both murder and causing great bodily damage with intent by the jury at Derby Crown Court on Thursday.
Medical evidence submitted during a five-week-trial revealed Elijah sustained brain damage from at least three separate incidents, including New Year’s Day and January 2 2022, as well as seventeen bruises over his chest, back and stomach consistent with grip marks. Injuries of these kinds can be associated with child abuse, when the baby suffers damage whilst being raped or sexually assaulted.
The baby sustained limb and rib fractures as well; his fatal head injuries were characterised in court as “catastrophic.”
Alesbrook reported to the court that he looked after Elijah alone while Shemwell was working away from her Acorn Drive, Belper, Derbyshire house.
Days before Elijah was rushed to the hospital on January 2, Alesbrook sent a Snapchat message to Shemwell calling her infant a “c***,” but he denied being “unduly angered or irritated” by the child.
Though she is now 23, Shemwell, who was 21 at the time, has admitted to two counts of child abuse, including the fact that she did not swiftly call emergency services after Elijah fell ill.
She uploaded a video of Elijah unconscious with a floppy arm to pals on Facebook asking for help on his condition on January 1.
CCTV footage presented before Alesbrook’s trial revealed Shemwell visiting a shop the evening of the fatal attack.
Shemwell also recorded video of Elijah trying to breathe before she dialled 999 at 10.33pm, which resulted in his being rushed by paramedics to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham.
Three days later on January 5 he passed away.
Shemwell was called at the trial of her ex-partner as “a thoroughly inadequate mother” who both generally and especially ignored Elijah and failed to seek quick medical attention for him on both January 1 and 2. Shemwell was observed to “give” the baby to Carl Alesbrook for him to sexually and violently abuse the child. It is not stated whether there were photographs taken for distribution as hurtcore.
Trying Alesbrook, prosecutor Vanessa Marshall KC told the jury: “Whilst the prosecution heavily criticise Miss Shemwell for this neglect towards Elijah, it is not the prosecution’s case that she caused any of the injuries.”
Ms. Marshall carried on: “The prosecution is confident that a careful review of the evidence in this case puts this defendant alone with Elijah moments before the critical events… so as to make it inexplicable on the basis of coincidence that it was not this defendant who was responsible for causing Elijah’s injuries and death.”
Shemwell’s claimed sexual involvement with her separated baby’s father at the beginning of the trial was said to have resulted in Alesbrook “some understandable frustration at the uncertainty of the status of his relationship.”
The prosecution also claimed that Alesbrook’s toothache at the time drove him to “lose his temper” with Elijah.
Alesbrook maintained that any one element led him to act violently, but following over ten hours of jury deliberations he was found unanimously guilty.
Shemwell and him will be sentenced on a date to be set.
High Court Judge Mr Justice Jeremy Baker discharged jury members from service for the next ten years after adjourning the case.
Declining pre-sentence reports, the court remarked of Alesbrook: “I know something of his background, which on any view is rather sad.”
Then he informed Alesbrook, who has a mandatory life term: “There is only one sentence that can be imposed but part of that sentence will be a determination of the minimum term you will have to serve.”
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