A stepfather has been jailed for life on Friday after fatally abusing his 10-month-old stepson Jacob Crouch in 2020.
Craig Crouch, 39, was found guilty of murder and three counts of child cruelty on Wednesday after a jury heard Jacob had 39 rib fractures, 19 visible bruises, and internal injuries likened to those seen in car crash victims.
Sentencing Mr. Crouch at Derby Crown Court on Friday, Mr. Justice Kerr said the former forklift driver had caused Jacob “acute physical and mental suffering.”
Mr. Crouch will serve a minimum sentence of 28 years. Jacob’s mother Gemma Barton, 33, was jailed for 10 years for causing or allowing his death and child cruelty after being cleared of murder and manslaughter.
The latest high-profile case of child death during the COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns over the impact of isolation.
Acute Physical and Mental Suffering
A seven-week trial heard Jacob was abused over the course of six months before he was found dead in his cot at home in Derbyshire on the morning of Dec. 30, 2020.Two hours before his death, Mr. Crouch said in a 999 call that the baby was “fine.”
A post-mortem examination concluded he had died from an infection caused by a traumatic bowel injury, with dozens of other injuries also found.
The judge said Mr. Crouch had “inflicted first bruising, and then fractured ribs, on this little baby” and had “not shown any remorse” for what he did.
The trial heard Mr. Crouch told Ms. Barton in June 2020 to be “more regimental” with her son, including by taking him to bed for crying for no reason in order to “not let this take over us.”
In a text, he claimed that he was “starting to get really pissed off” with Jacob. In one message, the pair referred to Jacob as the “devil.”
In September, when Ms. Barton told Mr. Crouch she was bathing Jacob, he replied “3 foot deep, just hot water and some bleach xxxx.”
Neither defendant had any previous convictions. Ms. Barton’s lawyer Clive Stockwell KC said his client didn’t assault her son or encourage or assist Mr. Crouch.
He also said Ms. Barton had been “coerced and controlled” and “effectively isolated” by her partner.
“She failed to protect her son on that fatal night when she should have been aware, as the jury found, of the risk posed by Mr. Crouch, and she will have to live with the reality of that finding, and if the verdict of the jury allies with the truth, so she should,” he said.
Charity Boss: Lockdowns Gave ‘Cover’ to Abusive Parents
Abigail Gill, the associate head of policy and public affairs at the NSPCC, told The Guardian that while children’s social care services were already stretched before the pandemic, COVID-19 and lockdown measures “exacerbated” the problem and “curtailed” the work of children’s charities and other organisations.“We are now starting to see the impact that lockdown has had on children’s social care and vulnerable children. What these cases show is that our deepest fears did come to fruition for some children and harm was taking place behind closed doors,” Ms. Gill said.
“What we’ve seen in quite a few of the cases is the way in which lockdown measures were actually used as a cover by some adults who were intent on causing harm to those children,” she said. “Now that those cases are coming through the court system, we’re seeing the horrible details of all of that come to light.”
Jacob’s murder was the latest of a number of high-profile child abuse cases in which children were killed by their parents or carers during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Prior to Arthur’s death, both his father and his father’s partner had abused him for months. The couple had also lied to the school and social services after the boy didn’t return to school following lockdown, the judge said.
The court heard that Star had been referred to social services five times but the cases were all closed after the same-sex couple managed to convince social workers that either Star’s injuries were accidental or the allegations were made maliciously by those who didn’t like their relationship.
