Evil boyfriend lashed out in ‘fit of temper’ after tragic tot, 2, disturbed him watching porn

Martin Currie, aged 36, is said to have lashed out in a ‘fit of temper’ after two-year-old Keigan O’Brien disturbed him as he lay in bed watching porn on his phone.

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Keigan’s mum, Sarah O'Brien, 33, had left her son with her partner of six months while she took her other children to school.

But when she returned, little Keigan was unresponsive in his room.

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Currie and O’Brien failed to call for an ambulance for two hours.

After a trial lasting nearly five weeks, Currie was found guilty of murder and jailed for life at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday.

He was ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years behind bars.

O’Brien, 33, was jailed for eight years after being found guilty of causing or allowing the death of her son and child cruelty.

Sentencing Currie, Mrs Justice Eady said: “These offences involved the grossest abuse of a position of trust.

“You placed yourself in the role of Keigan’s father, your duty was to protect him, instead you abused, injured and killed him.

“You inflicted appalling physical suffering on Keigan before he died.”

Mrs Justice Eady said heroin addict Currie was ‘apparently triggered by a fit of temper’ at being interrupted by Keigan as he ‘lay in bed looking at porn’ on his phone.

She said he ‘violently yanked’ Keigan’s arm, fracturing his wrist, shook him and threw him down, hitting his head on a hard surface, before leaving him to ‘bleed on to his pillow’.

The judge said that ‘in a particularly pathetic sign of self-absorption,’ Currie made contact with his drug dealer while Keigan lay dying.

O’Brien embarked on a relationship with Currie six months before Keigan’s death and witnesses noticed a change in her attitude and behaviour towards her son.

Mrs Justice Eady said O’Brien decided to put her relationship above the interests of her child and said the pair adopted ‘cruel and dehumanising names’ for Keigan.

Investigations after the murder found blood spatters from a previous occasion on the wall by Keigan’s high chair and on Currie’s clothes.

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