Cruel grandparents who murdered two-year-old grandson jailed for 40 years

Two grandparents who murdered their two-year-old grandson after subjecting him to a campaign of abuse have been jailed for 40 years.

Ethan Ives-Griffiths was starved of food and water, and his tiny frame bore 40 visible injuries by the time he collapsed with a catastrophic head injury on the evening of August 14, 2021.

Michael, 47, and Kerry Ives, 46, were found guilty of his murder at Mold Crown Court, where jurors became upset at harrowing footage showing Ethan’s mistreatment at their hands.

But it did not move his own mum, Shannon Ives, 28, who did nothing to stop the ‘abuse and casual cruelty’ the toddler was subjected to in front of her at their home in Flintshire, North Wales.

Michael and Kerry Ives were jailed for life today for Ethan’s murder and were ordered to serve minimum terms of 23 and 17 years respectively.

Shannon Ives was jailed for 12 years having been found guilty of causing or allowing his death and of child cruelty.

Judge Mr Justice Griffiths told the trio Ethan ‘was a brave and resilient boy with a strong character’.

‘Ethan Ives-Griffiths was a two-year-old with an independent spirit. His mother and his grandparents hit him, but when they did, he was defiant and even laughed,’ the judge said.

‘Even though he was only a toddler, he was a brave and resilient boy with a strong character.

‘He already had qualities which in an adult could make for greatness, but the people hitting him didn’t like the little boy standing up for himself. They decided to break him.

‘After a horrifying escalation of cruelty and violence over a couple of months, he was murdered.

‘All the hopes and promise of the life he should have had were taken from him.

‘You, his grandparents, Michael and Kerry Ives, murdered him, and you, his mother, Shannon Ives, allowed that death for those terrible crimes against your own flesh and blood.’

Ethan was also supposed to be being monitored by social workers when he died.

The toddler had been placed on the child protection register, requiring him to be seen by a health visitor or social worker every 10 days.

When Shannon Ives last saw her social worker, on August 5, she spoke to him on the doorstep for nearly 45 minutes but told him Ethan was having a nap.

But because of the Covid restrictions still in place at the time, he didn’t go inside to actually see Ethan.

He was only seen once in person between the time he was placed on the register and when he died.

No-one answered the door when social worker Michael Cornish went to visit in the days before Ethan’s death and a scheduled appointment with a health visitor on August 13 was cancelled.

Ethan’s family have since launched a petition calling for a change in the law to ensure cases in which social workers are denied entry to a home are immediately escalated to police for a welfare check.

His aunt, Rebecca Shone, said: ‘Ethan didn’t slip through the cracks, he was failed by a system that wasn’t built to respond when access is denied or when a child is in danger behind closed doors.’

She added on the petition, which has more than 35,000 signatures: ‘We couldn’t save Ethan, but we can honour him by making sure this never happens again.’

During the trial, jurors were told Shannon Ives had fled domestic violence from her home in Mold in June that year.

Her parents accused her of hitting her son, with Michael Ives telling the jury his daughter was ‘quick-tempered’ and would slap Ethan a couple of times a day.

But Shannon Ives told the court her parents were ‘horrible’ and abused her as a child.

The court heard Ethan was made to stand with his hands on his head as a punishment when he misbehaved.

CCTV footage from August 4 showed Michael Ives carrying his grandson by the top of his arm in a way which Caroline Rees KC, prosecuting, described as ‘as though Ethan was just a bag of rubbish to be slung out’.

The video, taken from the back garden of the family’s four-bedroom home, showed Ethan appearing unsteady on the trampoline, or lying down, while other children bounced and appeared to show Michael Ives point the garden hose at him, place the toddler’s hands on his head and gesture to another child to punch Ethan.

After watching the video in court, Michael Ives said he felt ‘ashamed’ and admitted being cruel and neglectful of the toddler, but denied mistreating him in other ways.

The cameras did not show Ethan leave the house after August 4 until August 12, when Michael Ives was seen again carrying him by the upper arm, putting him into a car seat and appearing to punch towards the youngster.

When Ethan was examined by doctors after his death, he was found to have abdominal injuries likely to have been caused by blows in the days before his collapse.

Other injuries included bruises which were consistent with grip marks on his leg and face.

Experts said Ethan would have died of dehydration within days had he not suffered the head injury and at the time of his death weighed just 10kg, the court was told.

Detective Superintendent Chris Bell said Ethan was singled out and ‘casually and brutally assaulted’.

He said: ‘It is beyond comprehension how anybody could treat a human being like that, let alone a defenceless two-year-old who you should be caring for.’

The jury heard medical evidence that Ethan’s fatal head injury was caused by deliberate force or shaking and occurred at the time, or in the minutes before, he collapsed on the evening of Saturday, August 14, 2021.

Michael and Kerry Ives, originally from Wolverhampton, were in the living room with Ethan at the time of his collapse while his mother was on the phone upstairs.

Both told the jury ‘nothing’ had happened to the toddler before he fainted as they watched television.

Kerry Ives said she immediately called Shannon Ives to come downstairs, but the court heard it was 18 minutes before she called emergency services.

Ethan was taken to the Countess of Chester Hospital and later transferred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, where he died two days later.

A Flintshire County Council spokeswoman said the council would be co-operating with an independent child practice review by the North Wales Safeguarding Board, who are leading a multi-agency review of the case.

The review, which aims to examine the involvement of agencies and identify what lessons can be learnt, is likely to be completed by the start of 2026 at the earliest, a spokesman for the safeguarding board said.

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