A MAN who killed his fiancee’s toddler son while she was away for the night was today found guilty of manslaughter.
Liam Whoriskey was found unanimously guilty at the Crown Court in Derry over the death of three-year-old Kayden McGuinness between September 16 and 17, 2017 – just five days after getting engaged to Kayden’s mother.
Following an eighteen day long trial and after just one hour and twenty minutes of deliberations, the jury of six men and five women also found Whoriskey unanimously guilty of inflicting child cruelty on Kayden.
There was uproar in Courtroom 4 when the jury foreman announced the two guilty verdicts.
Kayden’s mother Erin McLaughlin together with members of her family were in the packed public gallery alongside members of Whoriskey’s family.
Police reinforcements were also present in the courtroom when the jurors’ verdicts were announced.
People in the public gallery also shouted “thank you” to the jurors and Whoriskey was also verbally abused as he was taken from the dock to the cell below.
EMOTIONAL CASE
Whoriskey shook his head as he stood in the dock when the jury foreman announced that he’d been found unanimously guilty of killing Kayden between the evening of September 16 and the morning of September 17, 2017, when Whoriskey was babysitting the child and the child’s baby sister.
The child cruelty conviction related to an incident on August 15, 2017, when Kayden was found to have sustained a bruised nose and two black eyes.
On a second charge of child cruelty between September 6 and September 16, 2017, the trial judge, Judge Philip Babington instructed the jury to find the defendant not guilty by direction.
Judge Babington then excused the jurors from future jury duty for life. He told the jurors it had been a very emotional case for them to have to hear.
Following the verdicts members of Whoriskey’s family, among them his mother and his grandparents, were separately led out of the court building via a side door.
‘DIFFICULT TIME’
Outside the court building Kayden’s mother Erin McLaughlin, who became engaged to Whoriskey just five days before the death of her son Kayden, said she believed justice has been done.
She said: “It has been a very very difficult time. I am happy with the outcome and I hope he rots in jail.
“Nobody can ever understand how difficult it is to lost a child in this way.”
During the eighteen day long trial the jurors heard evidence from twenty-seven prosecution witnesses and from four defence witnesses.
They were told that Whoriskey had the sole overnight custody of Kayden in the family flat at Colmcille Court when the child’s mother went out socialising with family members and friends.
Kayden was found dead by Whoriskey just before 10am on September 17, fifteen hours after the child had gone to bed.
REMANDED IN CUSTODY
He had fifteen bruises to his scalp and face, none of which was visible to either his mother nor to Whoriskey when the child went to bed.
Paramedics called to the scene on September 17 found the house in a state of disarray and the child’s bruised body, with foam coming from his mouth, in his bed.
There was an overturned chair in the flat, the bath was filled with dirty water, there was a knife on the floor and several internal doors had been damaged.
The trial also heard that they day before, the defendant had been seen dragging Kayden around by his hood and wrists while shopping in the city centre.
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Kayden died as a result of fifteen blunt trauma injuries which caused a bleeding and a swelling of his brain.
Following the guilty verdicts members of Kayden’s family and members of Whoriskey’s family exchanged verbal insults before the courtroom was cleared.
Judge Babington remanded Whoriskey in continuing custody until a plea and sentencing hearing takes place on November 29 and he ordered the preparation of pre-sentence and of victim impact reports for that date.