by A teenager shook his partner’s baby to death days after he ‘c***ed’ the four-month-old in a nasty Snapchat message. Carl Alesbrook inflicted ‘catastrophic’ brain injuries on little Elijah Shemwell, the court has heard.
Alesbrook, who was 16 years old at the time, was looking after Élias while the child’s mother was away. The couple had only met seven weeks earlier.
Alesbrook, who is now 19, caused whiplash-type injuries, bleeding on the brain, and multiple broken bones to Elijah. Jurors were told Alesbrook shook the child during incidents including New Year’s Day and January 2, 2022.
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Elijah was found with a bruise around his body consistent with bite marks, Derby Crown Court heard. During a five-week trial, Alesbrook denied that the child was ‘unreasonably angry or irritated’.
But the court was told he sent a Snapchat message to the child’s mother, India Shemwell, calling Elijah a ‘c***’ day before he was taken to hospital. Alesbrook also denied that toothache made him ‘lose his mind’ or that he was ‘jealous’ of Shemwell’s relationship with the child’s father.
The jury was shown a video taken by Shemwell of an unresponsive Elijah with a flabby arm on January 1, which she sent to friends on Facebook to seek advice. Another video showed her son ‘gasping for breath’ before she called the emergency services on the evening of January 2 and he was taken by ambulance to the Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham.
Elijah died three days later on January 5 from fatal head injuries described in court as ‘catastrophic’. Shemwell cried in the dock when the videos of Elias who looked ‘lifeless’ were shown to the court during the sentencing hearing on Friday (November 15).
She was described in her ex-partner’s trial as a ‘totally inadequate mother’ who neglected in general and specifically to seek medical attention for her son. Prosecutor Vanessa Marshall KC said Shemwell ‘failed to put Elijah’s needs above her own’ and should have known Elijah was ‘testing Mr Alesbrook’s patience’.
She said: “The prosecution’s case is that she should have realized shortly after he was shaken, probably for the second time, that Élias was very ill and needed medical attention. That is especially true when she would, as we have, erupt fresh in the face of Elijah.”
Mark Heywood KC, defending Alesbrook, said the defendant was ‘very young and very immature’ at the time of the offences, but was ‘capable of being a very caring father’. The court heard that Alesbrook looked after Elijah when his mother was away in Acorn Drive, Belper, Derbyshire.
Shemwell’s defense lawyer, Darron Whitehead, said: “She knows she’s let her son down, she knows she’s let herself down, and she’s let her family down. It is her inaction, her failures, that will haunt her for the rest of her life. I miss Élias and no matter what is said in this room, or in writing, she loved her son.”
Shemwell, then 21 but now 24, admitted two counts of child cruelty in December last year, including failing to call the emergency services sooner after Elijah became ill. Alesbrook, formerly of Upper Greenhill Gardens, Matlock, in Derbyshire, denied murdering Elijah.
He was unanimously convicted after a trial in July. Both Alesbrook and Shemwell were sentenced at Derby Crown Court on Friday.
Alesbrook was given an indeterminate sentence with a minimum term of 14 years, minus time already served. Shemwell was sentenced to three years in prison.
A victim impact statement by Shemwell’s mother, Rachel Shemwell, read to the court by Mr Marshall, said her daughter was ‘not the best of mothers’ and things could have been ‘different’ if she had sought help. She wrote: “We will never get Elijah back and we will only remember the happiness he brought us in his short life.”
Judge Jeremy Baker said: “The effect Eli’s death has had on those who loved him is palpable. Nothing this court can do will lessen their overwhelming sense of loss.” The judge told Alesbrook: “There is only one sentence that can be imposed and that is detention at His Majesty’s Pleasure.”
Detective Chief Inspector Greg McGill, who led the investigation into Elijah’s death, said: “Even a child, even a teenager, knows the deadly risks of shaking a four-month-old boy. The force used to squeeze his tiny body broke his ribs – and the shaking caused so much damage that his brain was starved of oxygen and died.
“Though India was simply a terrible mother, she could never have predicted Alesbrook’s brutal actions. However, it is quite clear that she could and should have taken much better care of Elias and she will have to live with the consequences of her action and inaction for the rest of her life.”
