A Cheshire man who murdered his girlfriend’s son while she was at the hairdressers has been jailed for life.
Jonathan Simpson, 25, will serve a minimum of 19 years in jail after being found guilty of the murder of 22-month-old Jacob Marshall.
Liverpool Crown Court heard how the toddler suffered a “catalogue of injuries” on his body as well as a fatal head injury.
Jacob was found seriously injured at his mother’s home in Speke, Liverpool, on July 12 in 2019, and was taken to hospital.
He tragically died the following day.
Jacob’s mother Emma Marshall told jurors: “On July 12 2019, my life changed forever.
"I made a decision to leave my baby Jacob in the care of Jonathan Simpson and that is something I will regret for the rest of my life.”
She described the toddler as a “happy little boy” who was “boisterous” and made her laugh.
She said: “I do want to know what happened to Jacob but at the same time I don’t want to know as I can’t stand the thought that Jacob may have been frightened, may have been asking for me, whether he was aware of what had happened to him and whether he had suffered, and I don’t know whether I would be to deal with this.”
Judge Andrew Menary said Simpson, who had convictions for 31 previous offences, had given “a variety of accounts” of how the toddler came by his injuries but all were untrue.
He said: “Only you know precisely what you did that afternoon to hurt Jacob in this way and you have chosen, cruelly and cowardly, to keep that a murky secret.
“Instead you have lied and lied again about the cause of Jacob’s death.”
Simpson, originally from Winsford in Cheshire, had moved in with Miss Marshall shortly before the incident after they began a relationship in May that year, the court was told.
She went to the hairdressers and left the toddler in Simpson’s care on the afternoon of the fatal incident.
The judge said: “Although she will, I have no doubt, always blame herself for that decision, she could never have known there was a much darker side to your personality.”
He said he would assume Simpson was acting “in a rage” when he carried out the attack because if it had been “calculated violence” it would have been “unspeakably wicked”.
“You have not shown a jot of regret or remorse about any aspect of the case other than fury about being arrested in the first place,” the judge added.
In a statement which was read to the court, Jacob’s grandmother Christine Parkinson described Simpson as a “monster”.
She said: “Jonathan Simpson took our baby boy from us and we are just heartbroken.
“He was such an innocent little boy with his whole life in front of him.”
