By Grâçia Ada Obi
A 19-year-old teenager, Carl Alesbrook of Upper Greenhills Gardens Matlock has been accused of murdering his lover’s four-month-old baby Elijah Shemwell.
According to the mother of the diseased India Shemwell, aged 23, who narrated that she left her child in care of her lover in Acorn Drive, Bieper, United Kingdom (UK) while she was out to work.
Within seven weeks Shemwell met Alesbrook, her son has suffered brain damage or subdural bleeding from shaking on at least three separate occasions.
Recently Alesbrook was arraigned at Derby Crown Court where he denied murder charges and causing grievous bodily harm relating to alleged attacks on Elijah.
Prosecutor, Vanessa Marshall, presented medical evidence from Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre showing that the four-month-old Elijah suffered 17 bruises around his chest, back and stomach caused by inflicted injury consistent with being gripped by an adult.
The trial heard that days before Elijah was rushed to the hospital, Alesbrook sent a snapchat message to Shemwell calling the baby a very offensive name.
When asked by defence Barrister Mark Heywood whether he was ever “unduly angered or irritated” by Elijah, Alesbrook responded “no.” saying that he would never shake a baby because he “knew what was right and what was wrong.”
And rather than protect him, it is the prosecution’s case that instead the defendant Alesbrook shook Elijah on at least two occasions resulting in symptoms of brain damage or dysfunction and subdural bleeding, prior to a final shake recently, which caused catastrophic head injuries and his premature death a few days later.
“You will also hear members of the jury that in addition to the head trauma, the defendant caused rib and limb fractures to Elijah’s body, one to two days before his admission to hospital on January 2.”
Ms Marshall told the court that Shemwell had separated from Elijah’s father but “remained emotionally and sexually involved” with him, which may have caused Alesbrook “some understandable frustration at the uncertainty of the status of his relationship” with her.
The prosecution alleged that a toothache suffered by Alesbrook at the time may also have caused him to lose his temper with Elijah.
Alesbrook denied that his tooth pain caused him to lash out at the baby and denied feeling jealous towards Shemwell’s ex-partner.
The jury was instructed to retire to consider its verdicts in the case by Mr Justice Jeremy Baker on Tuesday afternoon (July 9).
Carl Alesbrook and India Shemwell will be sentenced on a date to be fixed for their parts in Elijah Shemwell’s death and neglect.
Adjourning the case, High Court Judge Mr Justice Jeremy Baker excused the members of the jury from jury service for the next 10 years.
Opting not to order pre-sentence reports, the judge said of Alesbrook: “I know something of his background, which on any view is relatively sad.”
He then told Alesbrook, who faces 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 that you will have to serve.”