A British court has found that a Kenyan boy whose body was discovered floating in a river in Bridgend, United Kingdom, two years ago was murdered by his mother and stepfather.
The body of Baby Logan Mwangi, whose Kenyan father Benjamin Mwangi works as a bookmaker in the UK, was discovered in the Ogmore River in Bridgend, England, towards the end of July 2020.
His remains, the court said, had horrendous injuries including 56 external wounds and bruises and internal injuries similar to those witnessed in victims of high-speed car crashes.
People who were supposed to look after him allegedly brutalized and abused the minor for months.
“He suffered damage to his brain, liver and stomach. His death would have been slow and painful,” The Guardian reported.
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The deceased’s mother, Angharad Williamson, her current husband, John Cole – who allegedly disliked Logan for his African heritage – and a 14-year-old boy who lived with them have all been found guilty of his murder.
Mwangi, Logan’s father, met Ms Williamson in 2010 while she was working as a warehouse manager in Essex, South East England, through mutual acquaintances.
Logan was born on March 15, 2016, after they started dating in 2014.
“I was present when Logan was born and it was the happiest time of my life. I stayed with Claire (Ms Williamson’s mother) for a few weeks but I would clash quite a lot with Claire and did not think it was good for anyone, especially Logan, so I moved back to Brentwood,” Mwangi testified.
“During that period I was in regular contact with Angharad, who would call me and send me pictures of Logan. He was the cutest little boy…We were back and forth visiting each other,” Mwangi recalled.
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Things took a turn for the worst when his ex-wife met Cole, he added.
Cole, 40, has a criminal record for burglary, assault, resisting arrest, possession of bhang, and impeding the course of justice, according to three women who had dated him previously.
“He held long-standing racist beliefs which could have been relevant to his motives in the attacks on Logan, and he even stopped him from seeing his real father and grandmother,” he said.
Williamson called Mwangi shortly after initiating a relationship with Cole to inform him that she would be unable to continue speaking with him because her new partner “did not think it was normal” for them to continue speaking.
In 2019, Mwangi would only communicate with Logan via video call on weekends when he was staying with his grandmother Claire. It was then that Mwangi saw his son alive.
Logan’s suffering began in 2019, according to the court, when his mother and stepfather locked him in a dark room, denying him food and forcing him to eat only cereals and water for supper.
The boy was said to have shown up at school with mysterious injuries on multiple occasions.
Logan began stammering, wetting himself frequently, and inflicting bodily harm on himself as a result of this, which his teachers reported to social workers to no avail.
A year before Logan’s murder, medical experts raised alarm about Logan’s damaged arm, and they, too, contacted the authorities. Logan was assigned a social worker by the British government, but he was removed a month before his death because the government no longer considered he was facing a major risk to his life.
Furthermore, the 14-year-old’s foster family is said to have discovered knives stashed in his closet on numerous occasions. He is believed to have played a role in Logan’s murder.
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“The youth repeatedly talked about how much he hated Logan and wanted him dead. He didn’t even call him Logan, he called him “the five-year-old”. Social services were told about the threats,” the court heard.
The 14-year-old suspect testified that he had thrown Logan down a flight of stairs a few months before his death, fracturing his arm.
He said, “Instead of taking Logan to the hospital after the fall, Logan’s mother tried to physically rearrange the fractured arm by squeezing it until she heard a crack.”
“We all believed he’d fallen down the stairs, but it turned out the teenager pushed him down the stairs,” Ms Williamson said in court when asked about the event.
Logan’s mother and Cole were visited by social workers and the police two days before his body was discovered, after his injuries and mental state were reported by his school.
Prior to the visit, the two had worked to conceal the boy’s injuries but as soon as they departed, Cole punched Logan in the stomach, and the 14-year-old suspect swept the boy off his feet with a martial arts move.
Logan’s body was discovered floating in the Ogmore River, two days after the police visit.
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