A woman accused of murdering her two-year-old son inadvertently recorded her boyfriend allegedly hitting the little boy in 'harrowing' audio clips played to jurors.
Phylesia Shirley is said to have carried out the covert phone recordings at her one-bedroom flat to check whether then-partner Kemar Brown was secretly contacting other women.
However, police investigating the death of her son, Kyrell Matthews, discovered that the recordings contained disturbing evidence of the non-verbal boy being hit repeatedly, with Brown saying 'shut up', causing the toddler to cry and scream.
Kyrell died at the flat on October 20, 2019, with a litany of internal injuries, including 41 rib fractures and a 1.6in (4cm) wide cut to his liver.
Phylesia Shirley, and her then-boyfriend, Kemar Brown, who is not the boy's father, deny murdering Kyrell at Shirley's home in Thornton Heath, south London.
Prosecutor Edward Brown QC, outlining the prosecution case at the Old Bailey today, said the secret recordings offered a glimpse into the alleged abuse taking place at Shirley's flat in Thornton Heath, south London, in the months before Kyrell died.
He told jurors: 'It makes for harrowing listening, because, say the prosecution, you will hear Kemar Brown hitting that child again and again on different days, and you will hear Kyrell crying and screaming as a result.'
On one recording, the prosecution said Kyrell could be heard getting increasingly distressed amid 'slapping sounds' and 'hitting noises' as Brown told him to 'shut up'.
Kyrell Matthews, two, suffered months of abuse at the hands of his mother Phylesia Shirley and her boyfriend Kemar Brown according to recordings found on her phone, prosecutors said
Jurors were told Brown admits it is his voice on the recordings.
The prosecution said Shirley could then be heard asking 'What did he do?', to which Brown is said to have replied 'He got up'.
The prosecutor said: 'Plainly, she (Shirley) has seen distress at the very least, expecting punishment of Kyrell having taken place by Kemar Brown.
'It is plain, say the prosecution, what you can hear.'
The prosecution described the case as a 'determined pattern of repeated and significant assaults on a completely defenceless and young child'.
Jurors were told that on one occasion in the days before he died, Kyrell was apparently 'reluctant to go back into his mother's flat' having spent the day
