Lola James died at the Noah’s Ark children’s hospital in Cardiff on 21 July, 2020
The father of a two-year old girl who was murdered by her mother’s partner says his daughter’s life was filled with filth and chaos at the hands of her mother.
Lola James died from a “catastrophic” head injury after being attacked by Kyle Bevan.
“She wasn’t just taken from me in the worst way ever possible. She was brutally attacked,” Daniel Thomas said.
Bevan and Lola’s mother Sinead James will be sentenced later on Tuesday.
Bevan, 31, was found guilty of murdering the toddler earlier this month, while Sinead James, 30, who had been in bed when the assault is believed to have happened, was found guilty of causing or allowing her daughter’s death.
In a victim impact statement read out to the court, Daniel Thomas said: “Lola won’t have another birthday, or ride a bike, or listen to her favourite story.
Kyle Bevan was found guilty or murdering Lola in a “frenzied and brutal attack”
“She won’t sing her favourite songs, and I will never get to meet my daughter as a teenager or a woman. All I have left are memories of a beautiful baby and dreams of the child she can never become.
“I constantly imagine how she would sound and what she would find funny. I miss Lola every single day and my heart hurts every single day.”
Lola James’s grandmother, Nicola James, spoke directly to Kyle Bevan as she read her victim impact statement during his and her daughter’s sentencing hearing at Swansea Crown Court.
Addressing the court from the witness box while Sinead James wept, she began by addressing her granddaughter’s killer directly, telling him: “Look at me Kyle.”
She said: “There isn’t a single moment of any day that I don’t think of Lola. I don’t think I’ll ever come to terms with what has happened.
“Lola Patricia James was just two years and 10 months old when she was murdered. I constantly blame myself for what has happened. Why didn’t I see something? Why didn’t I notice?,” she said.
Kyle Bevan’s barrister, John Hipkin KC, offered no mitigation for Bevan, telling the court: “I accept that there is little to no realistic mitigation.”
In mitigation for Sinead James, David Elias KC said Sinead James was “fearful of Kyle Bevan, certainly by the end of their relationship – in other words, in the weeks leading up to Lola’s death”.
The judge countered this, describing James as “assertive” and arguing that in texts between her and Bevan, “she treats him as at least an equal and at some points she is telling him off”.
Mr Elias argued that James was “assertive with the police outside the door,” but that this was not always the case.
“She feared if she contacted the police that Kyle Bevan would react in the same way as previous partners had,” Mr Elias said.
“He was a man who would go on kill her daughter but while on the face of it he was treating her in a much better way than other partners in the past but because of the background she did fear that he might do something similar to her if she called the police or sought help.”
Mr Elias added: “We submit the loss of her child is an important factor to take account of in her case.
“She will always have to live with the fact that she has lost her daughter at the hands of a man she allowed into her home.”
