How ‘crisis led’ Croydon children’s services failed Kyrell Matthews

Analysis: police, social workers and other agencies missed chances to intervene in abuse, case review finds

With the awful fates of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and toddler Star Hobson still vivid in memory, we have another terrible child killing: two-year-old Kyrell Matthews, who died after sustaining blunt force trauma" over a period of weeks, according to a local safeguarding review, at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend.

Kyrell, of Thornton Heath, south London, died in October 2019. He had suffered 41 rib fractures, internal bleeding, and injuries and bruising to his liver and his penis. On Friday, his mother, Phylesia Shirley, 24, and her then-partner Kemar Brown, 28, were found guilty, respectively, of manslaughter and murder.