35-Year-Old Foster Mum Jailed For Life After Battering Toddler To Death

35-year-old, Barbaric' foster mum, Kandyce Downer, from Birmingham, was jailed for life today for the murder of 18-month-old Keegan Downer, who died at the family home on September 5 last year just months after Downer became her legal guardian.

Little Keegan had been repeatedly beaten and suffered more than 200 injuries, including seven broken ribs, broken legs and severe head and spine injuries. She had 153 scars on her body, including her face and neck.Today, as Downer was told by a judge at Birmingham Crown Court she would serve at least 18 years behind bars for the death of the toddler, details of the girl's catalogue of injuries were revealed for the first time in a series of x-rays and scans.

Jurors in the trial were told that Keegan's bones had been subjected to the sort of force usually experienced in a car crash.

Prosecutor Nigel Power QC said the toddler would have been 'crying and possibly screaming', making it inconceivable that someone looking after her would have been unaware of the injury.

Her left thigh bone had been fractured several times, most recently in the weeks before her death, and she had also suffered a traumatic head or spine injury, which was at least several days old when she died.

A post-mortem examination revealed the toddler died from a combination of old head injuries, septicaemia, a bacterial infection, and blunt chest trauma.

Downer had denied murder and causing or allowing the death of a child when she went on trial at the start of last month - and even tried to blame it on her teenage son.
But she was found unanimously guilty of both counts after almost three hours of deliberations by a jury yesterday afternoon.

Downer had been appointed Keegan's guardian in January 2015 with the blessing of social services, but in June 2015, six months after Keegan was put in Downer's care, the systematic abuse began.

Downer, who was a full-time business student with four other children of her own, had denied murdering the toddler, but had admitted leaving Keegan alone in the youngster's bedroom to take her natural daughter out on the day of the toddler's death.

Keegan was found unconscious after suffering a cardiac arrest. She was rushed to Birmingham Children's Hospital but was pronounced dead on her arrival.
The court heard forensic scientists found more than 80 blood spatters on the walls by her cot with 30 in the cot and more on the doors of a cupboard under the stairs.