22-Year Old Man Jailed For Life For Killing Girlfriend's 3-Year Old Son.

Though the approval to be angry to the point of violence should never be permitted; sadly, it happens. Anger frequently leads to violence in homes and families, and it is always the vulnerable who bears the brunt.

   22-year-old Peter Gavin Cawser, has been jailed for life, for battering to death the son of his girlfriend, three-year old Dylan Crean, as his mother Kate Crean tried but failed to save him.

Leicester Crown Court UK heard how Cawser “flipped out” and attacked Dylan, punching, kicking and throwing him against a wall, before turning on his girlfriend and the youngster’s mother, Katie, as she tried to protect her son.

Cawser inflicted more than 70 injuries on the 3-year old in a sustained and brutal attack that took place in the child’s bedroom.

According to Ms Crean, prior to the attack, Cawser had been taking diazepam tablets for recreational use, which he had found while working on a house clearance at a former drug addict’s home. He had been prescribed the medication to help with sleeping in the past, but had started abusing them.

Cawser had also been feeling irritable and annoyed with Dylan because he was often in the couple’s bedroom and playing with his belongings.

On the day of the attack, Cawser’s mood escalated when he returned home around 3.30pm while Ms Crean was cleaning their bedroom and Dylan was playing in his.

When he entered their bedroom, he saw a box of toys, which he asked Ms Crean to remove, but she delayed because there were some bicarbonate of soda she was using for cleaning on top of the box that she did not want Dylan to get hold of.

Cawser got impatient and angrily took the toy box into Dylan’s room himself. Ms Crean heard the slam of the toy box as it hit the floor and heard him say to Dylan: “You’re not going to be naughty again or start walking about and messing with things again, are you?” to which Dylan answered “Okay”.

Cawser got angrier and Ms Crean heard him say “you don’t say okay to me’” she went into Dylan’s bedroom and saw Dylan sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and Cawser knelt down in front of him shouting at him.

Cawser then ordered her to take the toy box back out and she heard him smack Dylan. She went back and told him to leave Dylan alone.  In Ms Crean words, “He turned and looked at me and his face was just pure evil and the look on his face, was like something out of a horror movie. Dylan just looked helpless.”

The court was told that Ms Crean saw Cawser punch Dylan in the face, a blow which caused his ‘little face’ to turn to the side with the force of the punch.

Then Cawser began an attack in which Dylan was kicked, slapped and thrown against the wall.

His mother repeatedly tried to get between him and her son but he overpowered her, hitting her and throwing her down the stairs.

Hearing her child crying, screaming and sobbing for her, in desperation, she jumped on Cawser’s back and told him ‘he’s had enough now, leave him alone, he’s only a baby.’

Midway through the attack, Cawser paused to close the windows of the family home in Edward Street, Albert Village, near Swadlincote to prevent neighbours from hearing Ms Crean’s screams.

Cawser who previously denied murdering the youngster changed his plea last minute to guilty making the trial speedy. After hearing Cawser admit he killed her son, Miss Crean said: “I’m happy he’s gone guilty. I can now start to heal.”

Close to tears, Miss Crean described Dylan as “funny, cheeky, brilliant and beautiful” and said: “I love Dylan so much and miss him so terribly everyday. My life is so different now, and not a day goes by without thinking of my boy and his lovely smile.

“If you knew Dylan, you couldn’t help but love him.

“No one will ever understand what Cawser took from me, and I hope no one has to go through what I have gone through in the past 12 months, and will continue to go through for the rest of my life.

“I’m pleased he has admitted what he’s done, and it has stopped me from having to sit through a trial.”

Miss Crean also thanked Leicestershire Police, the hospital staff who tried to save Dylan and all those who had shown her their support since the tragedy.

Officers were called by the ambulance service to Miss Crean and Dylan’s home, at 4.55pm on August 30, 2011, after a report that a child had sustained life-threatening injuries.

Dylan was taken to Derby Royal Hospital and later moved to Queen’s Medical Centre, in Nottingham, where he died the next day in the arms of his mother.

Sentencing him to life imprisonment to serve a minimum of 18 years, Judge Michael Pert QC, told Cawser that, Dylan’s response of “okay” to Cawser telling him not to be naughty or make a mess just before the attack was no defence.

The Judge said: ‘What happened has nothing to do with the behaviour of Dylan or the behaviour of his mother.

‘It was the vindictive and uncontrollable rage of an adult man against a three-year-old child.

‘You embarked upon a sustained, brutal attack upon this young child.’