Finley Boden: Jury shown evidence of “non-accidental” “blunt trauma” to 10-month-old Chesterfield toddler

Finley Boden died on Christmas Day, 2020, – 39 days after he was returned to parents Stephen Boden and Shannon Marsden.

The toddler suffered 130 separate injuries including 57 fractures – breaks to his collar bone, shoulder, shin, thigh bones, pelvis and ribs and two burns in the days leading to his death.

Boden, 29, and Marsden, 21, both deny murder, cruelty to a person under 16 and causing or allowing the death of a child.

Derby Crown Court heard today how the last time Finley was seen alive by care professionals was on November 27.

However photos seen on November 29, taken by his parents, showed bruising to Finley’s cheek and to his forehead.

Mary Prior KC, prosecuting, told a jury: “November 27, 2020, was the last time Finley was seen alive by a professional.

"The reason is obviously because he started to be bruised. This (the photos) is the earliest evidence of bruising which is non-accidental.

"This bruising is not an accident, it is from blunt force trauma – either from being hit or being hit by something.”

Ms Prior said the photos pre-dated the “fractures” and “burns” found on the child after his death.

She drew the jury’s attention to the toddler’s hand in a photograph, saying: “There were no burns and Finley is able to move his arms in the photos so there were no fractures.”

The court heard how on December 4 a family member noticed a bruise on the baby’s forehead which Marsden claimed he had caused by hitting himself with a rattle.

However Ms Prior said a consultant pediatrician’s opinion was “that’s no explanation for a bruise like that”.

In text messages Marsden claimed Boden was a “good father” and there was “never any violence to either child”, the court heard.

Opening the trial Ms Prior told the jury the multiple injuries caused to Finley would happened over a number of weeks between November and Christmas Day and would have caused “pain, swelling and restricted movement”.

Finley died after developing a heart infection and sepsis as he was unable to clear mucus as a result of multiple rib fractures.

However the court heard today that he was taken out in his pushchair by the couple twice on Christmas Eve – into Chesterfield town centre in the afternoon and to Tesco in the evening.

Ms Prior said it would have been “obvious” that Finley was suffering with sepsis at this point and that being moved would have been “very painful” due the child’s broken bones.

Analyses of the phone Boden and Marsden shared uncovered numerous texts to and from drug dealers for cannabis in the few days before Christmas.

On the evening of December 23 Marsden did internet searches for signs of sepsis and researched a news story about a woman who waited 90 minutes for an ambulance as the disease’s rash spread across her child.

The prosecutor said: “These symptoms were obvious and these symptoms were there – there’s no doubt that on December 23 Shannon Marsden knew her baby was very, very seriously ill.

"What did they do about it? These searches were interrupted by another purchase of drugs.”

At around 2.30am on Christmas Day an operations manager for the ambulance service attended the couple’s home to find Finley with no pulse.

The manager reported that Finley’s clothes and fingernails were dirty, as was the house.

However Boden’s account – that the baby had been fed before he and Marsden went to bed – raised suspicions as the operations manager believed the child had been dead for longer than Boden was claiming.

The court heard a blood test showed Finley’s blood sugar levels were much lower than they should be if he had been fed shortly before suffering a heart attack.

On New Year’s Eve the couple were told by police Finley had “a lot of fractured bones” - that the injuries were not accidental and had been “inflicted by violence”.

The court heard in the weeks that followed Boden gave various accounts about what had happened to his son.

Ms Prior said on January 2 he ran into an old friend, telling him “the dog had jumped on Finley’s ribs”, adding “he was being done for murder but was going to get it dropped to manslaughter”.

Another acquaintance said Boden recounted shaking the baby “a little bit” when he found him “crying and crying” with fluid coming from his nose and eyes.

The defendant thought the child had “picked up some drugs from around the house”.

Boden is said to have told the same friend he and Marsden had waited an hour to call paramedics on Christmas Day because he had wanted to “have a spliff” and “hide his drugs stash”.

In earlier evidence the court heard Boden had climbed into a window at the couple’s Old Whittington address while it was still a crime scene – on Christmas Day – and police later found a ladder pushed up against the house’s open loft hatch.

Speaking about the same incident when the couple were dropped by detectives at the home of family members, Ms Prior said: “The detectives were surprised that the topic of conversation was what food they were going to have on Christmas Day.”