Moment killer mother lies ‘I haven’t done anything’ through crocodile tears after battering her 18-month-old son to death with her new boyfriend during cocaine-fuelled night – as evil pair are jailed for life

Evil mother Sian Hedges can be seen lying in police footage that she had not touched her murdered son Alfie as she was jailed with her boyfriend for life today.

Hedges can be seen clutching a bottle of Coca Cola in the back of a police car as an officer questions her on her son’s injuries. 

Hedges responds: ‘What do you mean?’ before declaring ‘you’re joking’.

The appalling mother can then be seen lying through crocodile tears as she says: ‘I haven’t done anything to him’.

Hedges and her former lover have been jailed for life today for the ‘wicked and torturous’ murder of the defenceless toddler.

She and her ex Jack Benham ruthlessly slaughtered 18-month-old Alfie Phillips during a ‘frenzied’ onslaught in their caravan home in Kent in 2020 – less than two months after the murderous duo met. 

Alfie suffered more than 70 injuries to his tiny body when he was beaten to death and smothered by the evil pair during lockdown. 

Fuelled by cocaine, whisky and cannabis until the early hours of the morning, Hedges, 27, and Benham, 35, carried out a night of ‘violent discipline’ after calling Alfie ‘whingey and upset’. 

The toddler died with a ‘myriad of bruises’, broken ribs, arms and leg, and also had traces of cocaine and alcohol in his system, after the barbaric attack which took place in Benham’s caravan in Hernhill, near Faversham, Kent.

Today, a judge jailed the evil duo for life, with Hedges set to spent 19 years behind bars and Benham to serve 23 years.  

Hedges met her former soldier lover Benham in September 2020 at a mutual friends house where the pair would buy drugs. She was still dating Alfie’s father, Sam Phillips, at the time. 

Evil Hedges would get high with her new lover in drug binges. But she would return to Mr Phillips, adding: ‘It was like he held me under a spell.’

In a victim impact statement read in court, a heartbroken Mr Phillips said: ‘After the trial we still feel we deserve answers. I will never know the truth about what happened to my son.

‘I never got to hear him say his first proper words, I never got to have a conversation with him, I was robbed of the opportunity to see him grow up.’

Reacting to the sentencing, a heartbroken Mr Phillips said his son’s killers had ‘finally got what they deserved’.

‘The outcome could’ve been better – but we have got the justice in our hearts,’ he told reporters. ‘Justice has been been done. We can finally move on.’

Sam’s fiancée Sarah Merritt added: ‘They thought they were going to get away with it but they didn’t.’

Jurors took nearly ten hours to convict the pair following a nine-week trial at Maidstone Crown Court last year. 

During the trial, Alfie was described as ‘good as gold’ and ‘lively’ by his father who said there was ‘never a dull moment’ with him and that he was always playing and laughing. 

The court heard Benham admit he and Hedges were drug addicts who would regularly take drugs around her son.

They began their relationship in September 2020 after meeting at a mutual friend’s house where they would buy drugs.

On the night before Alfie died, Benham said Hedges went to buy drugs from their friend and repay her £400 debt, and also get mixers and drinks for their evening together in the caravan.

The former Army man said the pair were drinking, chatting and watching YouTube videos that evening as ‘normal’.

They claimed they shared a bed with little Alfie overnight and woke at 11.30am to find him unresponsive.

But the prosecution said this was the time Alfie must have been violently assaulted.

Prosecutor Jennifer Knight KC said: ‘It was all a lie, the truth is you and Sian were both present and involved in that assault, you and Sian both killed Alfie.’

The toddler was discovered blue and floppy on the morning of November 28 2020, and paramedics said it was ‘immediately apparent’ to them that Alfie had been dead for some time.

Jurors heard that Benham’s mother tried to perform CPR on him after Benham came out of the caravan, where he lived in his parents’ garden, carrying Alfie.

Joan Benham recalled her son pleading: ‘Mum, do something, he’s not breathing, mum do something.’

Harrowing footage reveals the moment murderous mother Hedges was first questioned by cops after being arrested for the savage attack on her son.   

Sat in the back of a police car, clutching a bottle of Coke, and in disbelief as an officer explains that some of Alfie’s injuries can’t be accounted for, to which Hedges brashly replies: ‘What do you mean?’ 

The officer explains that bruising to the toddler’s eye, a deformation to one of his wrists and a potentially old fracture on one of his arms that came up in an X-ray would require further explanation. 

As the officer officially announces his arrest of Hedges, she is stunned, and pleads: ‘I haven’t done anything to him’.

The footage also shows the arrest of Benham, who the officer recognises as being ’emotional’, as he places him under arrest for the neglect of a child, while the 35-year-old wearing a tracksuit sits in the back of the police car. 

Benham can be heard becoming agitated, shocked that the officer is arresting him, and throws his girlfriend under the bus, as he says: ‘No, you can’t arrest me. What about Sian?’

The court also heard about other injuries Alfie had sustained in the months before his death, and explanations for them, such as a cut under Alfie’s eye from playing with keys, and his fingers being caught in the dog gate in Benham’s parents’ home.

In text messages sent in the weeks before his death, Benham said that as a ‘joke’ Hedges should bite the little boy hard, after she messaged: ‘Little shit bit my arm this morning, f****** hurt.’

During the trial the court heard Benham’s caravan was untidy and there was no cot or essential items needed to care for a young child.

Blood was also found on Alfie’s sleepsuit and bedding, which was later confirmed through DNA analysis to be his own.

Today at Maidstone Crown Court, prosecution counsel, Jennifer Knight KC, described the attack as ‘aggressive discipline which became a furious assault’.

She said Alfie had gone through a ‘long period of physical suffering’ prior to his death, at the hands of two people in the ‘ultimate position of trust.’

Ms Knight read a victim impact statement to the court, written by Alfie’s father Sam Phillips.

It said: ‘When my son Alfie was born on May 26, 2019, our lives changed forever. I loved him immediately.

‘When he was little he was the sweetest little baby. Alfie was growing into a great toddler – he was into everything.

‘He would climb everything. We certainly had our hands full but he made us smile.’

The statement continued: ‘I loved him. He was my little boy. Alfie’s smile would light up any room.

‘As a family we have so many happy memories of how cheeky he would be.’

Mr Phillips said he finds these memories ‘really hard’ to think about following Alfie’s death.

He continued: ‘Words cannot describe the devastation Alfie’s death had on us as a family.

‘My world stopped and it was never ever going to be the same again.’

Mr Phillips said his son’s death had had a huge impact on his mental health and sent him ‘over the edge’.

He described how he has struggled to sleep since and has turned to alcohol to help him ‘drown out the unbearable’.

He continued: ‘The fact that I was not there to stop it and to protect my son, haunts me.’

The victim impact statement explained how Mr Phillips was unable to see Alfie in hospital because Hedges had told police he was not involved in his life.

He added: ‘I was not even able to see him in the hospital after he died. It was too late.

‘Sian’s heartless lies stopped me from being able to say goodbye.’

Mr Phillips concluded: ‘I never got to hear him say his first words. I never got to have a conversation with him. I was robbed.

‘We have not had closure and even after the trial we feel we haven’t had answers.

‘I will never know the truth about what happened to my son.

‘Every day for the rest of my life, I will be thinking about this over and over.’

Alfie’s paternal step-grandfather Mark Demain, also gave a victim impact statement, which was read to the court by Ms Knight.

He said: ‘When Alfie was born on May 26, 2019, he blew us all away. It’s hard to describe the love we had for him but it was instant and unconditional.

‘We felt like our best friend had arrived on the day he was born. Our lives seemed to have become perfect.’

He continued: ‘We yearned to see him everyday and then that day came – the day he was killed – and he was gone. He was taken from us at just 18-months-old.

‘We have never experienced pain like this and never thought we would. I would describe it like the light in our souls has gone out.’

Mr Demain said he and Marie, Alfie’s grandmother, will ‘never be the same again’.

He concluded: ‘Our best friend, our grandson, was so cruelly taken from us that day. Every day we are hurting.

‘Our shining light that shone so bright will always be in our hearts.

‘If only we could tell Alfie how much we miss him and how much we love him.’

Sentencing the pair, Mr Justice Cavanagh said: ‘The injuries suffered by Alfie that night were so numerous and so serious that the medical experts were not able to say which of them had been the immediate cause of Alfie’s death.

‘It is absolutely clear, however, that the cumulative effects of these vicious and brutal assaults resulted in his death.

‘It must have taken some considerable time to inflict these injuries on Alfie, and the pain and fear that he must have suffered is almost unimaginable.

‘As I have said you were the only two people in the caravan with Alfie on the night of 27 November 2020, and you have both continually lied about what happened.

‘However, it is clear that you had planned to spend the night taking drugs and drinking.’

He continued: ‘It is a great tragedy that Alfie did not have the chance to grow up and enjoy a full and happy life.

‘The sentences that I am about to impose cannot possibly compensate for the loss of this child’s life.

‘There is only one sentence that the law allows me to pass for the offence of murder.

‘It is a sentence of life imprisonment.’

Reacting to the jailing, child protection charity NSPCC said: ‘The pain and suffering endured by Alfie Phillips in his short life, inflicted by those whose responsibility it was to care for him, was shocking and heart-breaking.

‘Young children are totally dependent on the adults around them, and therefore particularly vulnerable to abuse. So it is vital that all is done to ensure the youngest members of our society are well cared for, protected and given the chance to thrive.

‘It is crucial that anyone worried about a child’s safety speaks out about their concerns.’

Alfie Phillips joins a heartbreaking rollcall of children killed in lockdown after the tragic deaths of Star Hobson, Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Kaylea Titford

By SUKHMANI SETHI

Alfie Phillips, the 18-month-old toddler whose parents were today jailed for life for beating and smothering him to death, is one of a growing list of children killed in lockdown.

As millions of Britons were confined to their homes at the height of the Covid pandemic, little Alfie suffered a ‘myriad of bruises’, broken ribs, arms and legs, after a barbaric attack in his stepfather’s caravan.

Traces of cocaine and alcohol were found in Alfie’s system, as his mother, Sian Hedges, blamed the restrictions for increasing her anxiety, which compelled her to take drugs on a weekly basis. 

It follows a familiar, grim pattern of abusive parents using lockdown ‘as a cover’ to carry out their cruelty, with similar violence dished out to a host of other young victims including Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, whose cases tugged at the heartstrings of the nation.

Experts have explained how usual safeguarding methods or chances to spot serious abuse such as schools, health workers and children’s clubs were absent or moved online during the pandemic, meaning abusers could harm children in their care with impunity. 

Alfie joins a heartbreaking rollcall of children killed in lockdown, including two-year-old Kyrell Matthews, who was left with 41 rib fractures and internal injuries by the time of his death after weeks of cruelty at the hands of his mother Phylesia Shirley and her boyfriend Kemar Brown. 

Meanwhile, the case of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, who was poisoned and tortured in what should have been a safe home, shook the nation for its sheer depravity when the six-year-old was murdered by his cruel stepmother Emma Tustin on 17 June, 2020.

She was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 29 years and the boy’s father Thomas Hughes was jailed for 21 years for manslaughter.

Similarly, Star Hobson was just 16 months old when she was murdered by her mother’s girlfriend Savannah Brockill in September 2020.

In the lead-up to her death, she had suffered months of abuse in her home in Keighley, west Yorkshire, during the coronavirus lockdown in 2020.

Elsewhere, two-year-old Lola James was tragically killed by her evil stepfather, suffering 101 injuries including brain damage similar to what is sustained in high-speed car crashes in July 17, 2020.

Then on October 10, 2020 16-year-old, Kaylea Titford, who suffered from spina bifida, was found dead at her home in Newtown, Powys, after her parents allowed her to become morbidly obese during lockdown.

In another tragic example, five-year-old Logan Mwangi was murdered by his mother, step-father and teenage step-brother on July 31, 2021.

His body, which suffered 56 ‘catastrophic’ injuries consistent with a ‘brutal and sustained assault’ was found in the River Ogmore near his home in Sarn, Bridgend county.

Alijah Thomas, five, who begged her mother Martina Madarova, 41, not to kill her as she strangled her to death at their home in Ealing, west London, on September 14, 2021 is another victim.

The court had heard from Jack Benham, Alfie’s stepfather, how he and Hedges began their relationship around September 2020 through meeting regularly at the same friend’s house where they would buy drugs. 

Tests showed the pair had used cocaine and Hedges admitted to police she had taken a £40 bag over the course of three hours after Alfie went to sleep, the prosecution said. Benham also said he smoked some cannabis, which he did regularly. 

The boy was discovered blue and floppy on the morning of November 28 2020, and paramedics said it was ‘immediately apparent’ to them that Alfie had been dead for some time.

The youngster was taken back to the caravan at 7pm and was not seen again by anyone other than Benham and Hedges until about 11.30am the following morning. It was during these hours Alfie was brutally murdered by the pair. 

He said they left him to fall asleep without being cuddled, while together they drank whisky and Coke, ‘getting drunk, but not too drunk’, with Hedges telling police they had their last drink at about 1am and then went to sleep in the same bed as Alfie.

Benham told police Alfie was ‘whingey and upset’ when he was put to bed between 7pm and 8pm on the night of Friday, November 27. 

The despicable pair denied harming Alife on the night that the toddler had his life cruelly snatched away from him, with Hedges and Benham pointing the finger at each other.

Hedges said Alfie stirred but went back to sleep with his dummy. She said he was ‘fine and normal’. She then recalled Benham waking her up saying ‘What the f***’s wrong with him? Oh my God. He’s under my leg’.

The court heard Benham, who is not Alfie’s father, said he thought he had suffocated him.

Hedges said Alfie was floppy and his lips looked blue and she had a gut feeling he was dead but denied having caused him any injury and said she had no idea how Alfie could have fractured his arms or sustained any serious injury.

But Jurors had heard about older injuries Alfie sustained in the months before his death, such as a cut under Alfie’s eye which was explained by the toddler playing with keys and his fingers being caught in the dog gate in Benham’s parents’ home. 

A skeletal survey and post-mortem examinations indicated many of the breaks to his bones would have occurred in the hours before Alfie’s death. 

In interviews, Benham told police he did not consider himself a step-father figure and rarely did anything for Alfie.

He described Alfie as a ‘mummy’s boy’ and admitted he did not like him. But during the trial he claimed he treated the toddler like ‘one of my own’.

Jurors reached a unanimous guilty verdict for the murder of little Alfie following deliberations that took nearly ten hours, that began on Tuesday afternoon.

Prosecutor Jennifer Knight KC had told jurors: ‘It is clear that he had been deliberately injured on more than one occasion, culminating in an assault perpetrated on him during the night of 27 to 28 November 2020 that led to his death.’

She added: ‘Jack Benham and Sian Hedges were in the caravan together throughout the night.

‘Had either defendant not been joining in with the assaults, that defendant who was not part of it would have stopped the attack and removed Alfie Phillips from the caravan, and from the presence of the other who was carrying out these attacks.

‘The fact that this did not happen can only be because both defendants agreed that the assaults should take place…they both agreed in meting out some sort of aggressive, violent discipline to Alfie that night which resulted in his death.’

Speaking after the verdicts were announced, Alfie’s family told of the anguish of having to endure a three-year wait for justice, with many questions still unanswered.

They said: ‘We have had to listen to the horrific details of what Sian and Jack did to Alfie, how they assaulted him again and again.

‘He suffered so much pain. In these years, we have not had the closure, and even after the trial we feel that we still deserve answers.

‘The only people with these answers are Sian and Jack but they have refused to say what happened to him.

‘Still to this day, they have refused to take responsibility.

‘They have never shown any remorse for what they did, and we will never know the truth about what happened to Alfie.

‘Alfie was so cruelly taken from us that day. Every day we are hurting. Our shining light, that shone so bright, will always be in our hearts.

‘We have such special memories of our short time with Alfie and these memories keep us going on the darkest of days.’

Alfie was described as ‘good as gold’ and ‘lively’ by his father, Sam Phillips, adding there was ‘never a dull moment’ with the toddler, who he said was always playing and laughing.

Benham, of Hernhill, Kent, and Hedges, of Yelverton, Devon, will be sentenced on December 19.

Reacting to the verdict, Kent Police’s senior investigating officer, Detective Chief Inspector Kath Way, said: ‘Today’s verdict will not bring Alfie back, but it does mean that Hedges and Benham lose their right to freedom and life as they know it.

‘Alfie should have been protected and loved by his mum, instead Hedges and Benham inflicted unimaginable suffering on him during a sustained and lengthy night of violence.’

She added that the pair refused to admit what they had done and instead subjected Alfie’s family to a trial where details of ‘horrendous abuse’ were detailed.

‘Alfie would have been four now and would have recently started school. Instead, his life was cruelly taken away by those he should have been able to trust the most.’

An NSPCC spokesman also commenting on the ‘heart-breaking’ case said the cruelty inflicted on Alfie is ‘devastating’.

They added: ‘We know that very young children are particularly vulnerable to abuse because they are completely reliant on the adults around them for care and protection.

‘It is so important that anyone who is worried about a child’s safety speaks out about their concerns. People can contact the local authority, the police or the NSPCC Helpline.’