A teenage babysitter who tortured and murdered a three-year-old boy and left him with injuries from a ‘car crash’ will leave prison next week after just 14 years behind bars.
Kayley Boleyn, then 19, and her ex-heroin addict boyfriend Christopher Taylor, 25, were jailed for life in 2010 for the gruesome murder of Ryan Lovell-Hancox in Bilston, West Midlands.
The couple were found guilty of Ryan’s murder by a jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court in December 2008. The toddler suffered more than 70 injuries.
When convicted of murder and child abuse, Boleyn was sentenced to a minimum of 13 years in prison and Taylor’s tariff was set at 15 years.
MailOnline can reveal that Boleyn, now 33, had a closed parole hearing on September 18 and was told two weeks ago that she was recommended to be released on bond.
MailOnline can reveal that Kayley Boleyn, now 33, had a closed parole hearing on September 18 and was told two weeks ago that she was recommended to be released on license
The couple were found guilty of Ryan’s murder by a jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court in December 2008. The toddler suffered more than 70 injuries. In the photo: Boleyn
Ryan’s gruesome murder caused disgust but also anger when their trial revealed that Boleyn and Taylor were well ‘known’ to social services and that various agencies had failed to protect the vulnerable boy.
According to the parole notice, Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood has 21 days to ask the Council to reconsider its decision. So far she has not done so and the time expires on Thursday, October 28.
If the release decision stands, Boleyn will be back on the streets a few weeks before Christmas – albeit under a series of strict conditions, including ‘living at a designated address, making developing relationships public and an exclusion zone to prevent contact with the family’ avoid the victim. ‘
The decision to release Boleyn – one of Britain’s most notorious killers after the brutal murder of Ryan – is controversial as a summary document shows she was ‘remanded to closed conditions for breach of a prison rule’.
It says she spent three years in an open prison before being transferred to a higher security prison, where she remains an inmate.
The panel wrote: ‘The circumstances of this were carefully examined by the panel, which concluded that Ms Boleyn had learned lessons from this experience.’
Boleyn has completed a number of accredited programs to address her decision-making and since returning to a closed prison she has spent time in a specialist regime where she has been able to undertake work in open risk areas.
It continued: ‘This work had focused on her understanding and management of healthy relationships and the panel found that she had a good understanding of the risks associated with relationships becoming unhealthy.’
The Parole Board said it had identified ‘protective factors’ that would reduce the risk of reoffending. ‘This was seen as developing a pro-social support network in the community and creating a routine in her daily life.’
It also approved a release plan from Boleyn’s probation officer, which included “strict restrictions on Ms. Boleyn’s contacts, movements and activities.”
The summary continued: ‘The panel concluded that this plan was robust enough to allow it to be managed in the community at this stage.’
During its conclusion, the panel outlined the extensive licensing conditions that Boleyn must adhere to or risk being hauled back to prison.
The list includes: “Submitting to an enhanced form of supervision or monitoring, including drug testing, check-in times and a specific curfew.”
It concludes: ‘Having considered the circumstances of her offending, the progress made during her imprisonment, the details of the release plan and the full evidence presented at the hearing and in the record, the panel was satisfied that imprisonment was not longer was necessary for the suspect. protection of the public.’
A Parole Board spokesperson said: “We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board has ordered the release of Kayley Boleyn following an oral hearing.
“Decisions made by the Parole Board focus solely on the risk an inmate might represent to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.”
The jury was told Ryan died on Christmas Eve 2008 after suffering 75 separate injuries at the hands of his teenage carer and her alcoholic boyfriend during a month of abuse in ‘hell and misery’.
When convicted of murder and child abuse, Boleyn was sentenced to a minimum of 13 years in prison and Taylor’s tariff was set at 15 years. Pictured: Taylor
Ryan’s gruesome murder caused disgust but also anger when their trial revealed that Boleyn and Taylor were well ‘known’ to social services and that various agencies had failed to protect the vulnerable boy.
The jury was told Ryan died on Christmas Eve 2008 after suffering 75 separate injuries at the hands of his teenage carer and her alcoholic boyfriend during a month of abuse in ‘hell and misery’.
Just hours before he was taken to hospital, where he died, a housing officer called at Boleyn’s dilapidated social services-funded bedroom and heard the abused child moaning under a duvet.
But she didn’t act after assuming Ryan was being cared for temporarily and he just woke up.
Officials also failed to notice that Boleyn had moved her sadistic and dominant lover Taylor and two dogs – including an Alsatian named Soldier Boy – into the apartment.
These were violations of her lease that could have been used to evict her and save the boy’s life.
The failures mirrored the Baby Peter case, in which the child’s mother, Tracey Connelly, kept the presence of brash boyfriend Steven Barker in her home a secret.
Ryan had been entrusted to Boleyn’s care by his mother, Amy Hancox, 21, a childhood friend, who suffered from depression and struggled to get along with her son.
Boleyn took him into her bed in Bilston two months before his death, in return for around £20 a week for his upkeep.
The trial heard how Boleyn and Taylor blamed each other for Ryan’s injuries. He was thrown against walls and floors, locked in a closet, punched and screamed at so aggressively that he wet himself with fear.
Taylor, a crack cocaine addict, rubbed the child’s face on the dirty carpet as punishment, causing his nose to burn from friction.
In his final hours in December 2008, Ryan was hit up to ten times around the head, causing injuries similar to those suffered by children involved in a head-on car crash. The injuries caused a brain hemorrhage that led to cardiac arrest.
At a sentencing hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court in July 2010, Mrs Justice Macur told the couple: ‘You showed more concern for the two dogs you introduced into the household than you showed to Ryan.’
Ryan’s father, John Lovell, 24, left Miss Hancox 10 months before the tragedy when she began an affair.
After firefighters discovered she had left a child (not Ryan) in the company of drunks following a false alarm at Miss Hancox’s Bilston flat, social workers visited her but decided not to open a file.
Boleyn, meanwhile, had been in the care system herself and had been living in the bedroom for six months at the time of Ryan’s death as part of a plan to prepare her for an independent adulthood.
The illiterate teenager was monitored three times a week by a charity contracted by Wolverhampton City Council to provide her ‘aftercare’ service. It was one of the charity’s housing officers, Kelly Janner, who heard Ryan groan.
The boy died at Birmingham Children’s Hospital 38 hours after being admitted. He was baptized just before his death.
Mr Lovell and Miss Hancox wept in court as the judge told Boleyn she had been ‘put in a position of trust by Amy Hancox to care for her young son’.
The judge added: ‘This was a decision [Miss Hancox] will regret it till her dying day.”
Outside court, Mr Lovell and Ms Hancox said the killers should have been jailed for life. They said: ‘They robbed Ryan of his life, so they should be deprived of their freedom.
“They should never be released from prison. Life should mean living.”
Wolverhampton City Council set up an independent Serious Case Review into Ryan’s death, which was reported in June 2011. The city council criticized fourteen agencies for not intervening and protecting the toddler.
Taylor remains in prison and has not yet been referred to the Parole Board for a hearing.