Boy threw five-year-old down stairs months before his death, murder trial hears

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A teenager confessed to throwing a five-year-old down a flight of stairs and breaking his arm less than a year before the youngster was found dead in a river, a court has been told.

Logan Mwangi, also known as Logan Williamson, was discovered in the River Ogmore in Sarn, Bridgend, South Wales, on July 31 2021 having been subjected to a “brutal and sustained assault”.

The 14-year-old is now on trial for Logan’s murder, along with the young boy’s mother Angharad Williamson, 30, and stepfather John Cole at Cardiff Crown Court.

A recording of a call made by Williamson to the police non-emergency 101 in January 2021 was played to the jury on Wednesday.

During the call, Williamson can be heard telling the call handler about an incident that happened in August 2020 when Logan had fallen down the stairs and broken his arm.

Williamson claimed the teenage defendant had only recently admitted that it was he who had pushed Logan.

She said: “We all thought he’d fallen down the stairs but it turns out, (the teenager) confessed last night that he pushed him down the stairs.”

“This is too much for me to handle. I need to think about my children,” she added.

At the time of the incident, Williamson told Detective Constable Ian Pring, who interviewed her at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, that she had heard Logan fall down the stairs after she called him down for dinner.

DC Pring said he had been called to the hospital to take a first account after “concerns were raised about the welfare of Logan and how he obtained his injuries”.

Prosecutor Caroline Rees QC asked: “Did she (Williamson) tell you officer that Logan had fallen down the stairs? She’d suspected he dislocated his shoulder. And did she then tell you she had tried to pop the shoulder back into place and put Logan to bed?

“Did she say the next morning his shoulder was dropping down so she then attended hospital for medical treatment?”

“That is correct,” DC Pring replied.

Williamson told the officer: “I have suffered previous shoulder dislocations and my ex-partner was able to put it back in the socket. I have then decided I could put Logan’s arm back into place.

“I then took a firm hold of Logan’s arm, I pulled it straight and twisted it back in place and I heard a click.”

She said Logan then stopped crying and she fashioned a sling for him and put him to bed, having given him Calpol.

Williamson added: “At the time I believed I was doing right by Logan. I now realise this was a mistake. I just made a bad call.”

A statement from Logan’s father Benjamin Mwangi was also read to the court in which he described the moment he was told of his son’s death.

Officers from Essex Police had attended his work at a bookmakers in Brentwood on the day Logan was found in the river, and he said: “I said to the police: ‘Don’t tell me this has to do with Logan.’ It was then that they told me that Logan passed away.

“I don’t recall if they told me anything else. At this point I was hysterical. And I fell to the floor.”

In his account he described the day Logan was born as “the happiest time of my life”.

He said he and Williamson had remained together for around two and a half years in total, and he remained in contact with Logan for some time after their relationship had ended.

However, by the time of Logan’s death his contact with his son had lessened after Cole had said he was contacting Williamson too much.

He said not knowing exactly how Logan was had “tormented” him.

Learning support officer at Tondu Primary School Wendy John provided a statement which was read to the court, describing Logan as a “happy, caring, loving, and happy, intelligent child”.

But Ms John said she noticed a change in him after the Covid-19 pandemic and he returned to school, saying: “I noticed his stammer got worse and noticed he had lost weight and had dark circles around his eyes.”

Statements from other witnesses that were read at the hearing told of how the youth defendant was prone to having “violent outbursts” and was often verbally abusive to both adults and children.

Williamson was described by a number of people as being “volatile”, “needy”, and a person who “enjoyed being the centre of attention”.

Williamson and the teenager deny both murder and perverting the course of justice, while Cole denies murder but admits the second charge.

Cole and Williamson are also charged with causing or allowing the death of a child.