Christina Robinson, 30, admitted beating boy with a cane but denied causing fatal brain injury
A woman who subjected her three-year-old son to a campaign of “sadistic cruelty” and punishment for petty wrongs has been found guilty of his murder.
A jury at Newcastle crown court on Thursday found her guilty of murder and four child cruelty charges. She will be sentenced at a later date. During the trial Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, said Dwelaniyah had been subjected to “sadistic cruelty” by his mother. “He was subjected to a campaign of violence and cruelty by his mother for petty wrongs,” Wright said.It escalated in the weeks leading up to his death, he said. “The violence was ramped up until he could stand it no more and he died.”
The jury found Robinson did cause a fatal brain injury to her son on 5 November 2022 while she was the only adult in the house. It was more than 20 minutes before she dialled 999, first speaking to her husband on the phone despite him being with the RAF 240 miles away, and then using Google to look at how to resuscitate a child.
A postmortem revealed he had been the victim of a series of assaults and sustained a number of non-accidental injuries. The trial heard Robinson was using a sperm donor to try to conceive and, in October 2022, had also made contact with a man using a dating app.