• Liam Whoriskey, 28, of Derry, appealed his conviction for the manslaughter of Kayden McGuinness.
• In September 2017, the three-year-old was discovered dead in his bed at Colmcille Court in the Bogside.
• A jury at Londonderry Crown Court found him guilty of manslaughter and child cruelty.

A man sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a three-year-old boy in Londonderry has had his conviction overturned.

Liam Whoriskey, 28, of Glenabbey Gardens, Derry, appealed his conviction for the manslaughter of Kayden McGuinness.

In September 2017, the three-year-old was discovered dead in his bed at Colmcille Court in the Bogside.

On Thursday, judges rejected Whoriskey’s separate appeal against his 15-year prison sentence.

“This is not a case where the court has been left with a significant sense of unease,” said Sir Paul Maguire.

“In short, the sentence was not manifestly excessive or wrong in principle.”

A jury at Londonderry Crown Court found Whoriskey guilty of manslaughter and a second charge of child cruelty in October 2019.

The court was told during the trial that a post-mortem examination performed after Kayden’s death revealed he had suffered multiple injuries and bruising.

The examination revealed at least 15 non-accidental bruises on his scalp.

Whoriskey, the boy’s mother’s partner who had been looking after him on the night he died, admitted no one else had entered the flat to his knowledge.

But he couldn’t explain how the child died.

He denied the murder, claiming that after drinking, he fell asleep on the sofa and awoke to find Kayden in bed with foam coming from his mouth and significant facial bruising.

In his appeal, Whoriskey claimed that because there was no established time of death, the blunt force trauma could have occurred at a time when he did not have sole custody of the child.

Defence attorneys also argued that pictures of Kayden’s head and face injuries should not have been shown to the jury.

However, Sir Paul, sitting alongside Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan, found no unfairness in the disclosure to a panel performing an important function.

“We do not accept that seeing the photographs would incite prejudice against the applicant or gratuitously prevent him from making the best defence he could,” the judge said.

Further grounds based on manslaughter directions and the admission of bad character evidence were also rejected.

According to the court, the evidence raised serious concerns that Whoriskey’s alcohol consumption caused a loss of control, aggression, and previous acts of domestic violence.

“It appears that even in such an apparently innocuous situation as him watching television, the presence of a young child playing nearby could cause him to ‘get mad,’ leading to him shouting and abusing the child,” Sir Paul said.

He also described an earlier incident in which Whoriskey became enraged at Kayden while they were shopping in the city centre.

A witness, a store employee, described the incident as “sick,” adding, “You wouldn’t lift an animal like that, let alone a child.”

“After three and a half weeks of hearing evidence, it may be inferred that the jury would not have had difficulty understanding that the unlawful act being sought was linked to actions on the part of the applicant that may have been responsible for the condition in which the deceased was found,” Sir Paul added.

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