A violent mother who took photos of herself and her 11-month-old son after beatings which ended in his horrific death has been jailed for life.
Emma Wilson, 25, left Callum with a detached retina, an 'unsurvivable brain injury' and 11 broken bones after battering him so violently that the ceiling in the flat below shook.
She tried to blame the injuries on Callum’s ‘boisterous’ two-year-old brother who she said was jealous of his sibling.
Sentencing her to life with a minimum of 14 years, Judge Stephen Kramer QC said she had showed 'no emotion' throughout the five-week trial at the Old Bailey.
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The court heard that Callum suffered a catalogue of abuse in the weeks before his death, during which Wilson took ‘before’ and ‘after’ photographs of herself with him.
The latter pictures show her grinning next to her crying son whose face shows obvious injuries.
Another showed Callum moving away from a young boy wielding a pair of secateurs. The abuse culminated in a violent attack in March 2011 when neighbours heard five or six loud bangs.
Judge Kramer said: 'They caused the ceiling and light fitting to shake and the neighbours said they thought “the kid was going to come through the floor'.'
The next morning Wilson told an emergency operator that Callum was 'lifeless and not doing anything'.
He was taken by ambulance to Wexham Park Hospital in Slough before being transferred to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where he died three days later. He was found to have suffered severe brain damage and fractures to nine ribs, his left leg and right arm.
His mother had his body buried in an unmarked communal grave. Judge Kramer said Wilson came from a loving and supportive family but was an adept liar.
'You were clearly a good mother to your other son but for some reason you rejected Callum and acted against him,' he said.
'You were responsible for his care and if looking after two children was too much for you there was a support system there in the shape of your family and health professionals.
'Callum was vulnerable and you must have been the person who caused him the injuries which in the last ten to 14 days of his life made him so miserable, which the court saw in photographs, that for some reason you took.’
Psychiatric reports stated that Wilson has no mental disorder or illness. Callum spent the first few months of his life in foster care after Wilson left him in Wexham Park Hospital when he was born in April 2010.
She kept Callum’s existence a secret for the next seven months and was accused of killing him because she knew her partner at the time, Neil Richardson, was not the father.
Wilson denied murder and claimed she never hurt her son, adding: ‘It’s the best thing in the world being a mum.’
A tear to Callum’s top lip was caused when she tried to check his airway, she said.'
