Killer Kandyce Downer and toddler Keegan (SWNS)

A woman has been jailed for life for beating a toddler so violently the youngster resembled a ‘car crash victim’.

Kandyce Downer, 35, beat little Keegan Downer - who had been placed in her care just months earlier - so often she had over 200 separate injuries, including seven broken ribs, legs and severe head and brain damage.



More than 80 blood spatters were found on the walls by Keegan’s cot by forensic officers, but the mum of four never sought medical help for the toddler.

A jury at Birmingham Crown Court found Kandyce, a mother of four, guilty of murder and she will spend a minimum of 18 years behind bars.

Downer, who denied murder, looked down and showed no emotion as she was jailed.

Tragic: Little Keegan Downer. (SWNS)



Sentencing her, Mrs Justice Frances Patterson said the murder was ‘barbaric’ and called Kandyce was ‘vicious and unfeeling’.

‘It’s a horrific tale of callous conduct, at no stage have you shown any remorse,’ she said..



‘Why you changed from being a loving and caring mother to a brutal attacker of a defenceless child is a mystery.



‘Keegan suffered considerably in the last days and months of her life.’

Keegan, also known as Shi-Anne, was found unconscious at Downer’s home in Weoley Castle, Birmingham, on September 5 last year after suffering a cardiac arrest.



A computer image showing Keegan’s seven broken ribs. (SWNS)



Shockingly, the mum-of-four delayed calling 999 after finding the tot “unwell” in her cot and instead drove off to dump her old blood-spotted mattress near a skip.



Keegan was eventually rushed to Birmingham Children’s Hospital after paramedics arrived but was pronounced dead on arrival.



A court heard the youngster died from a combination of septicaemia, blunt chest trauma, a head injury and infection.



Keegan’s right femur also sustained serious injury. (SWNS)



She also had 153 scars on her body, including her face and neck.

During the three-week trial, the court heard Keegan had also suffered injuries to her brain.

Story continues

‘Keegan’s brain was underdeveloped because of layers of scar tissue brought on over time.

“As a result of the trauma Keegan’s brain was incarcerated in scar tissue which caused persistent pressure on it, preventing it from growing.



"Keegan would have become backwards in her development, she would have regressed from what she could go physically.



Family home in Weoley Castle, Birmingham, where abuse happened (SWNS)



A medical professional describe Keegan’s facial injuries as the worst he had ever seen.



Kandyce even tried to blame her teenage son for Keegan’s death after claiming most of the ‘day-to-day’ care was down to him and her three younger children.

The court heard Keegan - who was originally named Shi-Anne Rose Gi-Gi Downer - was removed from her drug addict mum days after being born in March 2014.



Police fear Downer only wanted Keegan to rake in £125-a-week maintenance payments.

Keegan moved into Downer’s home in January last year - just eight months before her death in September.



The court heard Keegan was last seen by a health visitor five months before her death and an expert reported the youngster seemed fine.



Judge Patterson added that before the assaults, Kandyce had been an ‘exemplary’ mother

‘You did not set out with the intention to kill Keegan but the repeated assaults upon her made death as an outcome of your conduct increasingly likely with the passage of time,’ she said.

Christopher Millington QC, defending, said Kandyce’s actions were ‘entirely out of character’.

‘She was not abusive towards Keegan from the very outset.’