Five-year-old Logan Mwangi’s death was tragically cut short at the hands of his mother, stepfather and a teenage boy.
Angharad Williamson, 31, her partner, John Cole, 40, and 14-year-old Craig Mulligan were all found guilty of murder in April after a trial at Cardiff Crown Court.
Logan, whose body was found dumped in the River Ogmore in South Wales, was the victim of a campaign of abuse, with injuries similar to victims of high-speed crashes or someone who had fallen from a height.
Now a new report into his murder has identified “systemic” child safeguarding issues – including a failure to report injuries he suffered months before his death.
Here, Sky News outlines a timeline of how key events in Logan’s life unfolded – and what happened in the wake of his killing.
15 March 2016
Logan Mwangi is born at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, Wales, to parents Angharad Williamson and Benjamin Mwangi, although the couple’s relationship breaks down shortly afterwards. Mr Mwangi returns to live in Brentwood, Essex.
June 2016
Mr Mwangi visits Logan in Bridgend for their first Father’s Day. It is decided Williamson and Logan will move to Brentwood – but they return to Wales two months later.
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End of 2016
Williamson weds another man, but the relationship becomes violent.
Contact between Logan and his father stops until 2019.
April 2019
Williamson takes Logan to visit his father in Essex – the final time Mr Mwangi sees his son, as Williamson begins a relationship with Cole and prevents access.
16 August 2020
Logan is taken to hospital by his mother, who claims he dislocated his shoulder falling down the stairs a day earlier.
Doctors find he has a broken arm and a referral is made to social services. Williamson also gives a statement to police.
21 January, 2021
Williamson calls 101 and tells the operator Mulligan, Cole’s stepson, has confessed to pushing Logan down the stairs, breaking his arm.
June 2021
Logan and his younger sibling are removed from the child protection register after social workers in Bridgend assess them to no longer be at significant risk of harm.
July 2021
Logan suffers a broken collarbone. There are no records of the injury being treated.
20 July 2021
Logan tests positive for COVID-19 and must self-isolate.
29 July 2021
It is believed Cole and Mulligan seriously assault Logan during an incident when, according to Williamson, he is punched in the stomach.
30 July 2021
Logan’s mother pulls him up forcefully by his pyjama top, causing it to rip, as she shouts at him to “tell the truth”, it is later said.
On the same day, social worker Deborah Williams arrives but is denied entry. She waits 20 minutes before leaving, without seeing or hearing the boy.
31 July 2021
CCTV footage shows Cole leaving the flat carrying Logan’s body at 2.30am. He walks towards the river while Mulligan follows.
They return to the house – but leave again to get rid of Logan’s pyjama top.
At 5.45am Williamson calls the police claiming she woke up to find her son missing – and accuses another woman of taking him.
Just after 6am, two police officers searching the nearby park area discover Logan’s body in the River Ogmore.
He is later found to have 56 external injuries.
On the day he is found dead, Logan would have been finishing his 10-day self-isolation period. He is later described as having been treated “like a prisoner” in a tiny room likened to a dungeon.
February 2022
Jurors are sworn in at Cardiff Crown Court to try Williamson, Cole, and Mulligan for murder.
He suffered injuries consistent with child abuse, the court is told, including a large tear to his liver and another to his small bowel.
The court hears Williamson “never shed a tear” for her son, and was watching reality TV on the night she was charged with his murder.
21 April 2022
Cole, Williamson and Mulligan are convicted of murder at Cardiff Crown Court.
Speaking outside court after the verdict, Mr Mwangi describes Logan as the “most beautiful boy” and says the world is a “colder and darker place without his smile and happy energy in which he lived his life”.
He adds: “I loved him so much and somehow I have to live my life knowing I will never get to see him grow up.”
30 June 2022
The three defendants are sentenced with Cole and Williamson handed life terms with a minimum of 29 and 28 years respectively.
Mulligan had not been identified in reports until this stage of proceedings, but the judge, Mrs Justice Jefford, lifts an anonymity order and rules he must serve a minimum of 15 years detention.
Passing sentence, she describes the disposal of Logan’s body in the river as “heartless”, “calculated and orchestrated”.
The judge says: “You are responsible for Logan’s death and all the anguish that has followed from it.
“Because he was killed in his own home, it is not possible to be sure what has happened to him.”
The judge says Logan was just 3ft 5ins tall before his death – and he weighed only 3st 1lb.
“Inflicting these injuries on a small, defenceless five-year-old is nothing short of horrific,” she says.
24 November 2022
An extended child practice review, commissioned by the Cwm Taf Morannwg Safeguarding board, finds there may have been “systemic” issues, rather than “isolated instances of individual error or poor practice”, regarding the handling of Logan’s case.
His voice had not been heard and there was “no knowledge of the reality of his lived experience”, the board rules.
