A mother and father were found guilty of the murder of their baby son, who they killed on Christmas Day in lockdown just days after social services put him back into their care.
Stephen Boden, 30, and Shannon Marsden, 22, murdered 10-month-old Finley Boden in 2020 after he suffered 71 bruises, 57 fractures and crushed and twisted bones.
Social Workers raised concerns before Finley was even born due to worries over the condition of the family home and his parent’s drug use. He was removed from their care immediately after he was born, in February 2020, but he was returned in November of that year, and just 39 days later, he was killed.
His pelvis was broken in two places, from sustained kicking or stamping and he had burns on his hand, one from a hot, flat surface, the other from a cigarette flame.
Little Finley fatally collapsed after suffering a cardiac arrest. Paramedics were called at 2.33 am on Christmas Day and he was pronounced dead at the hospital at 3.45 am. His parents didn’t call an ambulance for an hour because Boden wanted to smoke cannabis and hide their drugs.
Police released images of Finley and his killer parents for the first time and the filthy conditions in which he spent his last days, with faeces in the bedroom.
Just hours after his son’s demise, Boden was heard telling Marsden at the hospital that he was going to sell Finley’s pushchair on eBay, later telling police he was attempting to lighten the mood.
He sent a text message two days before the child’s death saying that he wanted to bounce Finley off the walls.
Little Finley becomes the latest victim in the harrowing roll call of children killed in their homes in lockdown, including Star Hobson, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Logan Mwangi.
The inside of Finley’s mouth was torn, with Ms Prior saying that this was caused by forcing a dummy or a bottle in the mouth.
The baby had a spiral break to the thigh, while a shin bone break was consistent with being held by the ankle and gripped and twisted.
Boden later claimed to a relative that the family dog may have jumped on Finley, causing numerous broken ribs, while allegedly blaming marks on Finley’s mouth on his son hitting himself with a rattle.
You can plainly see what a happy baby he was while he was in foster care, but then he was returned home to his monster parents, and this needs to be investigated thoroughly as to why he was returned home to his parents.
There is no other suitable solution in these scenarios than life imprisonment, and when I say life it should mean life with no parole because you just can’t rehabilitate people who act in such an abhorrent way. Of course, psychologists will go through the motions but there’s absolutely nothing that will cure such depravity.
This kind of thing is happening all the time, right here, right now, and social services can’t do their jobs properly because they’re understaffed and overstretched, and there will be another one soon, tragically.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 