A MAYARO man has been convicted of the 2008 murder of the nine-month-old baby boy he had previously thought was his son.

His common-law wife was found guilty of manslaughter because she did not intervene when the boy was beaten to death.

Justice Gail Gonzales convicted Kelt Kirk and Sherry Ann Lalloo after a judge-only, virtual trial for the murder of Raheim Clarke on July 2, 2008.

Lalloo is expected to be sentenced in September.

In her verdict, Gonzales said she was satisfied Kirk struck Raheim, who died of the blows. In her autopsy report, State pathologist Dr Easlyn McDonald-Burris said the injuries on the child’s body were consistent with blunt force trauma and were all fresh.

She also observed mild blood staining in the groin area. There were bruises on the inner surface of the lips. A small amount of bloody liquid was oozing from his penis.

“She said that due to the degree of injury, Raheim would not have survived for more than a day after the injury."

Burris ruled out the possibility that Raheim was beaten with a belt or an object with a sharp edge, injured by falling off a bed onto a wooden floor or someone squeezing his head with their hands unless it was in a restraint.

“She was of the view that the injury was caused by a blow to the right side of the head, with a blunt object...The cause of death was a blow to the right side of the head, which caused the head injury and haemorrhage,” the judge said in her verdict.

She also said she was satisfied Lalloo had a duty of care to Raheim but breached it by failing to intervene when Kirk was striking the boy.

“Raheim died as a result of a blow or blows inflicted by Kirk making Lalloo liable by her inaction.”

It was the prosecution’s evidence that Raheim’s mother, who at some point lived with Kirk and Lalloo and their daughter in the same room, found out about a month before the child’s death that Kirk was not the father, but had not told him.

Two weeks after leaving Kirk’s home, on June 29, 2008, the boy’s mother asked him to take care of the child. When she returned the next day, he told her it was too late to take the boy. When she went back on July 1, he again asked if the boy could spend another night.

The next morning Kirk took Raheim to the Mayaro district hospital. The child was unresponsive with no pulse, no heartbeat, and fixed, dilated pupils. Doctors saw bruises on the child’s face, nail marks around his neck and a cut under his upper lip.

The police were contacted and Kirk told them the child fell off a bed.

In that interview, Kirk said that Raheim was ill the night before and was continually defecating on himself. The morning he died, Kirk said he was outside when he heard Raheim fall off the bed. He said the boy looked unharmed, but while he was returning outside, Raheim began gasping for breath and stopped breathing.

Kirk admitted to hitting the child the night before, but said they were small slaps. He denied being responsible for the scratches.

Lalloo also claimed Rahim had fallen off the bed and stopped breat