Woman jailed for 18 years for murdering toddler Keegan Downer

A mother-of-four who murdered her toddler daughter months after being made her legal guardian has been jailed for at least 18 years.

Kandyce Downer was convicted on Tuesday of killing 18-month-old Keegan Downer, formerly Shi-Anne, at the family home on September 5 2015 after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

A post-mortem examination revealed the toddler died from a combination of old head injuries, septicaemia and blunt chest trauma but had suffered a catalogue of injuries in her short life.

Sentencing Downer to life with a minimum term of 18 years, Mrs Justice Frances Patterson said: “It is a horrible tale of callous conduct and at no stage have you showed any remorse.

“Why you changed from a loving mother to a brutal attacker of a defenceless child is a mystery.”

The judge told “vicious and unfeeling” Downer she had inflicted terrible injuries on the child, including brain damage which caused the defenceless youngster to regress.

“As a result of the trauma, Keegan’s brain was incarcerated in scar tissue which caused persistent pressure on it, preventing the brain from growing, and Keegan would have become backwards in her development.

“She would have regressed from what she could do physically.”

She said: “You did not set out with the intention to kill Keegan but the repeated assaults on her made death as an outcome of your conduct increasingly likely passage of time.”

Mrs Justice Patterson added that Downer had “hitherto been an exemplary mother” but had caused untold suffering on the little girl in her care.

She said: “The bruising and injuries to Keegan’s face, head and frenuli (mouth tissue) would have been evident to her carers.

“These injuries would have been caused by a hard slap, a punch, or forcing a feeding bottle into her mouth.”

Concluding her remarks to an unmoving Downer, the judge added: “Keegan suffered considerably in the last days and months of her life.”

Keegan’s little body was dotted with more than 153 scars, abrasions and bruises, but Downer never once sought medical help and never registered the child with her GP.

She had also previously and unsuccessfully tried to become the legal guardian of the Keegan’s older sister, the court heard on Wednesday.

However, Birmingham City Council later approached Downer to ask if she wanted to take on Keegan herself.

The judge said: “They contacted you to see whether you would be interested in caring for another baby girl, and you indicated a willingness to do so.”

Keegan had been removed from her own mother – a heroin addict – after birth, with extended family member Downer given custody as legal guardian, through a special guardianship order in January 2015.

But during what police branded Downer’s “evil” treatment of Keegan, she inflicted severe injuries on the youngster.

These included a spiral leg fracture which, jurors were told, would have made the slightest movement agony, and a historic injury to her head or spine, discovered only after her death.

For the previous 10 months Keegan had been raised by a foster carer and was described in court as a “healthy and happy baby”.

She then went to live with Downer at the family home in Beckbury Road in the Weoley Castle area of Birmingham, and a host of witnesses said she had been “a good mother”.

The toddler attended nursery until June that year which was what Mrs Justice Patterson described as “a turning point”, because it ended any public scrutiny of the child’s care.

Keegan collapsed at home shortly before 10am on the day of her death, after Downer left her alone for more than two hours to take another daughter to a wedding rehearsal.

But after Downer returned home, CCTV showed her driving to go to dump a blood-spattered mattress, a baby-grow and pyjamas near a skip before she rang 999.

Opening the case last month, the Crown’s QC, Nigel Power, said: “The likelihood is that Keegan was already dead when paramedics arrived.”

Keegan’s then foster carer had raised concerns with social services before the child’s handover that Downer may have had a financial motivation but the guardianship order was granted.

In the three months before her death Keegan was also not seen by any health, care or social services professionals.

During her own evidence, Downer also attempted to point the finger of blame at her teenage son when asked to explain Keegan’s grave injuries.

Downer was pregnant at the time with her married lover’s child, with Mr Power describing her personal life as being “in some disarray”, with an ongoing divorce and relationship troubles.

A post-mortem examination revealed what Mr Power called “repeated episodes of inflicted injury and apparent neglect”.

Opening the case, Mr Power said there was “no other realistic candidate for the many and terrible injuries that led to Keegan’s death”.

Following a three-week trial, the jury took just under three hours to agree with that conclusion and convict Downer of inflicting the eventually fatal injuries during a prolonged period of abuse lasting at least three months.

Eleven members of the jury returned on Wednesday to watch as Downer, wearing a blue coat as she sat in the dock, was jailed for her crime.

Keegan’s former foster carer, Jane Murray, said in a victim impact statement: “Hearing of Shi-Anne’s (Keegan’s) death was shocking and unbelievably painful and has left me devastated.

“I spent the first 10 months of her short life loving, cuddling and teaching her, keeping her safe and helping her grow into the happy, pleasant little girl I knew.”

She added: “I am grieving and the hurt won’t stop.

“I don’t sleep well and it’s difficult to understand how anyone could hurt such a sweet, placid child.”

In mitigation, Christopher Millington QC said: “Evidence suggests this was not an isolated event but that events took place over a significant period of time with significant force and a lack of medical treatment.”

Speaking outside court after the hearing, a tearful Elaine Downer, Keegan’s paternal grandmother, said: “I can’t understand how no-one noticed (her injuries) and that shocked me.

“Not meeting your grandchild or to see her grow up or to hear her laugh or to ever get married, it means a lot.

“It’s your grandchild because it means more because grandparents always seem to spoil their grandchildren.

“It is terrible, it is a nightmare. I am glad justice was served.”

Speaking after Tuesday’s verdict, Detective Inspector Harry Harrison, of West Midlands Police, said: “My view of Kandyce Downer is really quite blunt.

“Her treatment of Keegan was barbaric, inhuman and downright evil.”

A lessons-learned serious case review is being carried out by Birmingham Safeguarding Children Board (BSCB) into Keegan’s contact with health and social services in the run-up to her death.

The board’s chairman, Penny Thompson, said: “On behalf of all the agencies who sit on the BSCB I would like to express our deepest sympathy to Shi-Anne’s birth family and to those who knew and loved her.

“Following Shi-Anne’s tragic death, the board set up an independent inquiry, a serious case review, to establish what lessons could be learned by the agencies involved in this sad case.

“Now that the criminal trial has ended the review can be completed, reflecting on information disclosed during the trial.”

The report will be published in the summer.

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