A teenage babysitter who tortured and murdered a three-year-old boy and left him with injuries from a “car accident” will be free from jail next week after just 14 years behind bars.
Kayley Boleyn, then 19, and her former heroin addict boyfriend Christopher Taylor, 25, were sentenced to life in prison in 2010 for the horrific murder of Ryan Lovell-Hancox in Bilston, West Midlands.
The couple were found guilty by a jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court of killing Ryan in December 2008. The boy had suffered more than 70 injuries.
Upon being sentenced for murder and child cruelty, Bolena received a minimum sentence of 13 years in prison and Taylor’s sentence was set at 15 years.
MailOnline can reveal Boleyn, now 33, had a private parole hearing on September 18 and was told two weeks ago it had been recommended she be released on licence.
MailOnline can reveal Kayley Boleyn, now 33, had a private parole hearing on September 18 and was told two weeks ago it had recommended she be released on licence.
The couple were found guilty by a jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court of killing Ryan in December 2008. The boy had suffered more than 70 injuries. In the photo: Boleyn
Ryan’s horrific murder sparked revulsion but also anger as it emerged at the trial that Boleyn and Taylor were well “known” to social services and that several agencies had failed to protect the vulnerable boy.
Under parole rules, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has 21 days to ask the Board to reconsider its decision. So far it has not done so and time is running out on Thursday, October 28.
If the release decision stands, Boleyn will return to the streets a few weeks before Christmas, albeit under a number of strict conditions including “residence at a designated address, disclosing developing relationships and an exclusion zone to avoid contact with the victim’s family.” ‘
The decision to release Boleyn, one of Britain’s most notorious killers after Ryan’s callous murder, is controversial as a summary document reveals she had been “returned to conditions of confinement for breach of a prison rule”.
She claims that she had spent three years in an open prison before being transferred to a higher security prison, where she continues to be held.
The panel writes: “The circumstances of this were closely examined by the panel and concluded that Mrs Boleyn had learned lessons from this experience.”
Bolena has taken several accredited programs to address her decision-making and since her return to a closed prison had spent time in a specialist regime where she had been able to undertake work in outstanding risk areas.
He continued: “This work focused on his understanding and management of healthy relationships and the panel found that he had good insight into the risks associated with relationships becoming unhealthy.”
The Parole Board said it had identified “protective factors” that would reduce the risk of reoffending. “These were seen as developing a prosocial support network in the community and establishing a routine in your daily life.”
He also approved a release plan from Boleyn’s parole officer that included “strict limitations on Mrs. Boleyn’s contacts, movements and activities.”
The summary continued: “The panel concluded that this plan was sufficiently robust to manage in the community at this stage.”
During its conclusion, the panel outlined the extensive license conditions that Boleyn must comply with or risk being returned to prison.
The list includes: ‘Submit to an enhanced form of supervision or monitoring that includes drug testing, check-in times, and a specific curfew.’
It concludes: “After considering the circumstances of his offending, the progress made while in custody, the details of the release plan, and the full evidence presented at the hearing and in the record, the panel was satisfied that incarceration was no longer necessary for the cause.” protection of the public.’
A Parole Board spokesperson said: “We can confirm that a Parole Board panel has ordered the release of Kayley Boleyn following an oral hearing.
“Parole Board decisions focus solely on the risk a prisoner could pose to the public if released and whether that risk is manageable in the community.”
Jurors were told Ryan died on Christmas Eve 2008 after suffering 75 separate injuries at the hands of her teenage carer and her alcoholic boyfriend during a month of abuse in “hell and squalor”.
Upon being sentenced for murder and child cruelty, Bolena received a minimum sentence of 13 years in prison and Taylor’s sentence was set at 15 years. Pictured: Taylor
Ryan’s horrific murder sparked revulsion but also anger when it emerged at the trial that Boleyn and Taylor were well “known” to social services and that various agencies had failed to protect the vulnerable boy.
Jurors were told Ryan died on Christmas Eve 2008 after suffering 75 separate injuries at the hands of her teenage carer and her alcoholic boyfriend during a month of abuse in “hell and squalor”.
Just hours before he was taken to hospital, where he died, a housing officer knocked on Boleyn’s run-down bedroom, funded by social services, and heard the abused boy moaning under a duvet.
But he didn’t act after assuming Ryan was being treated temporarily and was simply waking up.
Officials also failed to notice that Bolena had moved her sadistic and domineering lover Taylor and two dogs, including a German shepherd named Soldier Boy, into the apartment.
These were breaches of her lease that could have been used to evict her and save the child’s life.
The failures echoed the Baby Peter case, in which the boy’s mother, Tracey Connelly, kept the presence of brutal 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 cope with her son.
Boleyn took him into her bedroom in Bilston two months before his death in exchange for around £20 a week for his support.
The trial heard how Boleyn and Taylor blamed each other for Ryan’s injuries. They threw him against walls and floors, locked him in a closet, beat him and yelled at him so aggressively that he urinated in fear.
Taylor, a crack addict, rubbed the boy’s face on the dirty carpet as punishment, causing a friction burn on his nose.
In his final hours in December 2008, Ryan received up to ten blows to the head, causing injuries comparable to those seen in children involved in a head-on car accident. The injuries caused a brain hemorrhage that led to cardiac arrest.
During a sentencing hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court in July 2010, Judge Macur told the couple: “You showed more concern for the two dogs you introduced to the home than you did for Ryan.”
Ryan’s father John Lovell, 24, abandoned Miss Hancox ten months before the tragedy when she began an affair.
After firefighters responding to a false alarm at Miss Hancox’s Bilston flat discovered she had left a child, not Ryan, in the company of drunks, social workers visited her but decided not to open a file.
Boleyn, meanwhile, had been in the care system and had been living in the dorm for six months at the time of Ryan’s death as part of a plan to prepare her for independent adulthood.
The illiterate teenager was monitored three times a week by a charity contracted by Wolverhampton City Council to provide its “aftercare” service. It was one of the charity’s housing officers, Kelly Janner, who heard Ryan moan.
The boy died at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, 38 hours after admission. He was baptized shortly before his death.
Mr Lovell and Miss Hancox sobbed in court as the judge told Boleyn that Amy Hancox had “put her in a position of trust to look after her little boy”.
The judge added: “This was a decision (Miss Hancox) will regret until the day she dies.”
Outside court, Mr Lovell and Miss Hancox said the killers should have been jailed for life. They said: ‘They deprived Ryan of his life, so they should be deprived of their freedom.
‘They should never be released from prison. Life should mean life.’
Wolverhampton City Council instigated an independent serious case review into Ryan’s death, which was reported in June 2011. It criticized 14 agencies for failing to intervene and protect the boy.
Taylor remains in prison and has not yet been referred to the Parole Board for a hearing.
