Logan Mwangi’s mum fails in bid to challenge murder conviction
The mother of murdered schoolboy Logan Mwangi has been refused permission to appeal against her conviction.
Angharad Williamson was sentenced to life in prison for her part in the brutal killing of the five-year-old in Bridgend.
Logan was beaten to death and then callously tossed in the river while Williamson played the part of a distraught mum looking for her missing child.
Williamson, her partner John Cole, and Cole’s teenage step-son Craig Mulligan were all convicted of murder at trial in Cardiff Crown Court.
However, Williamson subsequently launched a legal bid to appeal against her conviction.
Her initial application for permission to appeal the case – known as leave to appeal – was rejected, and the matter was taken to the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal sitting in Swansea Crown Court on Wednesday heard the renewed application.
The Court of Appeal heard that Williamson was seeking leave to appeal against her conviction on the grounds that evidence relating to her partner Cole had not been allowed to be put before the jury by trial judge Mrs Justice Jefford.
Peter Rouch KC, for Williamson, submitted that bad character evidence about co-defendant Cole in regard to his alleged ‘deep-seated’ racist beliefs should have gone before the jury.
The barrister said Logan was of mixed heritage and evidence about Cole’s beliefs would have assisted jurors when they came to consider motivation for the deadly assault.
He also contended that evidence about Cole’s alleged previous domestic violence should have gone before the jury, as should details of his previous convictions which would have shown a ‘propensity’ to violence.
The court heard details of his past convictions were in fact put before the jury but only in the form of agreed facts after Williamson had said in her evidence that Cole had boasted about his violent past and that she was scared of him.
In fact Cole’s antecedent record showed he had not been given an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence as a dangerous offender as Williamson contended he had told her.
Timeline of key events in the life of murdered Logan Mwangi
Here is a timeline of the key events in the life of Logan Mwangi, from his birth up until the discovery of his body in the River Ogmore in Bridgend in July 2021.
– March 15, 2016: Logan Mwangi is born in the Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend, to Angharad Williamson and Benjamin Mwangi. Their relationship quickly breaks down and Mr Mwangi moves back to Brentwood, Essex.
– June 2016: Mr Mwangi visits Logan in Bridgend for their first father’s day together and they have regular contact. Williamson and Logan move in with Mr Mwangi in Essex but by August have returned to Wales.
By the end of the year, Williamson had married another man, but the relationship became violent. During this time, contact between Logan and his father ceases.
– 2019: Contact between Logan and his father resumes. In April, Williamson takes Logan to visit Mr Mwangi and his family in Essex. This was the last time Mr Mwangi saw Logan, as Williamson was in a relationship with Cole and was preventing access.
– August 16, 2020: Logan is taken to hospital by his mother, Williamson, who said he sustained a dislocated shoulder when he fell down the stairs the day before. Doctors examining Logan find he has a broken arm. The hospital makes a referral to social services and Williamson gives a statement to the police.
Photographer: Elliot Wagland
Copyright: South Wales Police Handout
(Credits: Elliot Wagland)
– January 21, 2021: Williamson calls 101 and during the conversation tells the operator the youth defendant had confessed to pushing Logan down the stairs when he fractured his arm.
– June 2021: Social workers in Bridgend remove Logan and his younger sibling from the child protection register – meaning they are no longer considered to be at significant risk of harm.
– July 2021: At some point during the weeks before his death, Logan suffered a broken collarbone. There are no records of the injury being treated.
– July 20, 2021: Logan tests positive for Covid-19 and has to self-isolate.
– July 29, 2021: Logan is allegedly seriously assaulted by both Cole and the youth, an incident which Williamson claimed included Logan being punched in the stomach by Cole.
– July 30, 2021: Williamson allegedly lifts Logan up forcefully by his pyjama top, causing it to rip, and shouts at him to ‘tell the truth’. The same day, social worker Deborah Williams visits the flat but is denied entry, as Logan has Covid-19. She stays for 20 minutes and leaves without seeing or hearing Logan.
– July 31, 2021: At 2.30am, CCTV shows Cole carrying Logan’s body out of the flat and towards the river, while being followed by the youth. They return to the property but leave again to dispose of Logan’s ripped pyjama top.
At about 5.45am Williamson makes a 999 call to police, claiming to have woken to find Logan missing from the house, and accusing another woman of having taken him.
Two police officers searching the nearby park area just after 6am discover Logan’s body in the River Ogmore.
Logan was allowed to leave self-isolation the day he was found dead.
The application for leave to appeal the conviction was refused by the Court of Appeal.
The Lord Chief Justice of England of Wales, Lord Maldon – who was siting with Mrs Justice Stacey and Mr Justice Wall – said the court was ‘unpersuaded that the grounds put forward by the appellant were arguable’.
He said the original trial judge had been fully entitled to conclude that the evidence Williamson’s legal team sought to introduce did not have significant probative value, and her ruling on not allowing the evidence to be put before the jury had been ‘in truth, impeccable’ and the application to seek leave to appeal was therefore refused.
Lord Maldon said: ‘This renewed application for leave to appeal against conviction must be dismissed.’
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