Mother jailed for life for murdering her five-year-old son Logan Mwangi loses Court of Appeal bid to overturn her conviction

• Angharad Williamson denied her role in the murder and the subsequent cover up
• Her partner John Cole, 41, and stepson Craig Mulligan, 14, were also convicted

A mother who murdered her five-year-old son has lost a Court of Appeal bid to overturn her conviction today.

Angharad Williamson, 31, was jailed for life with a minimum of 28 years for murdering her son Logan Mwangi after he was brutally killed in his family home.

But Williamson denied her role in the murder and the subsequent cover up of his death.

Williamson’s partner John Cole, 41, and stepson Craig Mulligan, 14, were also convicted of the murder of little Logan.

Angharad Williamson (pictured), 31, was jailed for life with a minimum of 28 years for murdering her son Logan Mwangi after he was brutally killed in his family home

But Williamson denied her role in the murder and the subsequent cover up of his death. Pictured: Logan

Her barrister Peter Rouch KC told the hearing that evidence relating to Cole’s previous convictions and racist past should have been admitted during the murder trial.

That evidence, that was not heard before the jury, had been ruled inadmissible by the trial judge.

But three judges said the initial ruling by Mrs Justice Jefford was ‘impeccable’ and threw out Williamson’s bid.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, said: ‘The applicant’s case is that Cole and or Mulligan must have delivered the blows that killed her son and she knew nothing of it because she was asleep at the time.

‘Her account was that she did not wake up until 5am. We must note there was compelling evidence that that was not so particularly relating to the movement of curtains and lights in the room she was occupying and the use of her phone whilst Cole and Mulligan were out of the house.’

He said that the prosecution case against Williamson was that of ‘joint enterprise’ along with Cole and Mulligan, who were also both jailed for life.

The judge said that because Cole’s alleged racists beliefs, criminal convictions and history of violence were all 15 years old the trial judge was within her rights to rule evidence regarding them as inadmissible.

Williamson’s partner John Cole, 41, and stepson Craig Mulligan (above), 14, were also convicted of the murder of little Logan

Her barrister Peter Rouch KC told the hearing that evidence relating to Cole’s previous convictions and racist past should have been admitted during the murder trial. Pictured: Cole

He said: ‘The judge was fully entitled to conclude that none of this evidence had substantial probative value and did not establish a propensity to violence and her ruling was, in truth, impeccable.

‘It follows that despite the advocacy of Mr Rouch this morning this renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction must be dismissed.’

Logan was found with 56 external injuries as well as suffering a torn liver and trauma to the brain after being repeatedly abused at his family home despite being under the care of social services.

In the months before his murder Logan suffered a broken arm, a broken collarbone and a burn wound to the neck after Williamson pressed a hot teaspoon to his skin – but none of the injuries raised significant alarm bells with authorities.

After his death, his three stone body was callously dumped in the river 400 yards from the home.

The nine-week trial heard harrowing details of how Logan was kept like a prisoner in the days before his death after testing positive for Covid-19 and was confined to his tiny bedroom behind a locked child gate at the house in Sarn, Bridgend.

When he would try and leave the room to interact with his family Williamson and Cole would repeatedly punish him, even in the knowledge that little Logan would self-harm by biting himself until he bled.

Logan was found with 56 external injuries as well as suffering a torn liver and trauma to the brain after being repeatedly abused at his family home despite being under the care of social services

Prosecutor Caroline Rees QC told the trial: ‘He had been kept like a prisoner in his small bedroom – a room described by Angharad Williamson as “like a dungeon” with the curtains closed and a barred child’s gate stopping him from moving about the rest of the flat.

‘That little boy was being made to face a wall as food was being delivered so other members of the house did not catch covid. What must he have thought of the way his life was in these 10 days?

‘He was dehumanised by each of the defendants.’

Logan had been on the child protection register for seven months before his death but was stepped down from being a ‘child in protection’ to a ‘child in need’ following a review just a few weeks prior to his murder.

Ms Rees branded mum Williamson ‘a liar’ who ‘tried to portray herself as a loving mother who was over-protective to Logan’s interests – this was, as so much is about Angharad Williamson in the context of this case a total sham.

‘She has been exposed as a selfish woman whose only protective interest was to herself.

‘Even by her own words she accepts she was a “s*** mother” to Logan – a rare moment of truth during her time in the witness box.’

Medical experts said Logan’s injuries were such that they were compared to a ‘fall from a great height’ or a ‘high velocity road traffic collision’.

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