Evil mother, 30, who beat her three-year-old son with a bamboo cane ‘because the Bible told her to’ before shaking him to death is jailed for at least 25 years

A wicked mother who claimed the Bible told her to hit her toddler with a stick before killing him will spend at least 25 years behind bars.

In the weeks before his violent death, three-year-old Dwelaniyah Robinson suffered excruciating burns from being forced into boiling water and was subjected to a series of brutal acts at the hands of his mother Christina Robinson.

This included being beaten with a stick for ‘tampering with his food’.

Newcastle Crown Court heard the little boy died after emergency services were called to his home on November 5, 2022, by Robinson, who claimed he had stopped breathing while eating a cheese cap.

Paramedics who attended the house at Bracken Court, Ushaw Moor, County Durham, saw the boy’s legs were heavily bandaged.

The bandages concealed painful burns to his legs, buttocks and genitals, covering up to 20 percent of his body. Surgical intervention should have been carried out immediately, but he had not received proper medical treatment.

Dwelaniyah also had noticeable bruises on his arms and body after being beaten with a bamboo stick while already badly burned.

The little boy’s death was caused by a blow to the head, which caused devastating injuries to his eyes and brain.

The court heard he had suffered a similar injury two days earlier, which had begun to heal.

Robinson, who was married but pregnant by a sperm donor and had been seeing a man she met on a dating site at the time her son died, denied murder and four charges of cruelty to a person under 16.

The 30-year-old, who showed no emotion at the scene, during interrogation or during the trial, was found guilty by a jury in March.

During her hearing today, Robinson continued to deny her guilt, telling the court: “I pray for the day when justice will be served.

“I did not kill my child in any way, no matter how anyone wants to imagine it. I will stand by it forever.”

Judge Garnham sentenced her to life behind bars with a minimum term of 25 years.

The judge said: ‘What must have gone through the boy’s head when he was beaten with a stick by his mother despite the terrible burns is beyond belief.’

Robinson, a former hairdresser and personal trainer, had told the court during the trial that she wanted a large family, with children in “double figures” and followed the “Black Hebrew Israelites” movement, which she previously described as a ” lifestyle than as a religion’.

She said the Sabbath falls on a Saturday, when the religion does not allow work, cooking, cleaning or pleasure and must focus on “God himself.”

Robinson said that on the day of Dwelaniyah’s death, a Saturday, she had been “very happy but very tired” and had been listening to religious teachings on YouTube.

She admitted that she had used a stick on the boy that day for “tampering with his food” after seeing a video text about chastisement.

Prosecutor Richard Wright KC told the court Dwelaniyah died in hospital just over an hour after Robinson initially called emergency services.

The little boy had 70 different injuries, including burns, bruises and abrasions.

Mr Wright told the court: ‘His body showed that he had been the victim of a series of attacks over the time before his death and had suffered a number of non-accidental injuries.

“In other words, someone had deliberately hurt this little boy and had done so for some time.

“That person, the prosecutor says, was his mother, defendant Christina Robinson.

“There is clear evidence that Dwelaniyah was struck with a weapon in several places on his body, causing bruising, a characteristic type of bruising seen when someone has been struck with a cylindrical weapon.

“In this case, the little boy had been repeatedly beaten with a bamboo stick by his mother.”

Mr Wright said Robinson believed she was ‘allowed to do this because the Bible told her to chastise her child’.

The prosecutor said the bandages on Dwelaniyah’s legs covered “extensive” burns, adding: “They would have caused excruciating pain both when applied and afterwards if not treated or cared for.”

‘These were very serious burns. Surgery would have been necessary to treat them. They needed immediate medical attention and would have scarred him for life.

‘For weeks after these burns were suffered, she did not seek help for him and instead watched him struggle in pain every day with terrible burns that bled through the bandages she had applied.’

The court ruled that Dwelaniyah’s fatal head injury may have been caused by shaking and/or hitting a surface.