The couple who 'lied and lied' about toddler's fatal injuries

Kol Page was two years old when homicide detectives first began investigating his mother and her new boyfriend over the violent abuse he suffered in his own home.

It would be another two years, half of which was spent in hospital, before he died as a result of his injuries.

"We didn't know how long he would live for, but certainly we treated this as a homicide investigation from the outset," said the Metropolitan Police's Det Ch Insp Kate Blackburn.

"His injuries were so severe that he was always going to have a short life."

On Friday, Scott O'Connor, 36, was jailed for 18 years for Kol's manslaughter, and the boy's mother, Zoe Coutts, was sentenced to 10 years for causing or allowing the death of a child.

Kol has been described by officers who investigated the case as a "cheeky and very loving" little boy, who adored his mother and older siblings.

But on 25 April 2022, police and paramedics called to his home in Bromley, south-east London, found him unconscious.

Bodycam footage recorded by the officers shows his mother, Coutts, sobbing on the floor and telling them it was "unfair".

"Rather than helping Kol, she was just crying, sat on the floor," said Det Sgt Debbie Barge.

"You'd think she'd be doing everything she could to try and save a child's life, knowing full well that he wasn't responding; he didn't appear to be breathing and he was going blue."

Paramedics were able to restore Kol's pulse after half an hour, but he had suffered severe and irreversible brain damage.

At hospital, injuries were found to his small bowel, which medical experts said were likely caused by a kick, punch or stamp to his abdomen.

The prosecution at the trial at Southwark Crown Court last month said force had been involved such as might be seen "in a serious road traffic accident or a fall from height on to a hard object".

Coutts and O'Connor were arrested and released on bail while police spoke to medical experts and examined the couple's home to try to investigate their explanations over how Kol's injuries had been caused.

In footage from a police interview, O'Connor is seen telling officers he will not need a solicitor because Kol is "always hurting himself".

"He's just crazy, he's always running around, climbing over things and jumping off stuff," O'Connor said.

"It was just lie after lie after lie from them, in terms of protecting themselves," said Blackburn.

Analysis of phone data began to build a very different picture of what had been happening in Kol's home.

Coutts had only been dating O'Connor for a few months. By March 2022, officers found he was regularly staying at her home in Bromley.

Police say this was despite the housing having been provided to her under an arrangement that helped victims of domestic abuse and did not allow male visitors.

Photos were found showing Kol with bruising, including one from 9 April 2022, which showed the toddler with heavy black eyes.

But rather than seek help for the young boy, the couple had gone to a football match.

"The injuries, they're so bad," said Barge. "And to not even call for some medical advice - should I bring my two-year-old child who has a face full of injuries, just to be checked over?"

She said while texts between the couple discussed recipes for soup, Kol's welfare did not come up.

"It just doesn't get mentioned, and I think that the actual silence is actually evidence in itself that people knew that, how those injuries had come about."

Blackburn said officers also discovered that Coutts had cancelled a number of visits from social services at times when photos showed he had suffered visible injuries.

Text messages between the couple were found, including one exchange five days before Kol's collapse, where Coutts had told O'Connor that her son had been "whinging".

O'Connor replied: "slap him back to sleep lol."

It was evidence that Blackburn said pointed to an "escalating pattern of abuse".

The severity of Kol's injuries meant he required round-the-clock care. He spent more than a year in hospital, before moving to live with a foster family.

In a victim impact statement, read out in the court, Kol's foster mother described how she "immediately fell in love with him".

"It was so hard to comfort him, I wanted to cuddle him but it would cause him too much pain," she said.

"But it was nice as the staff would say, 'thank goodness you are here', as when he could hear my voice it would placate him. This meant that I knew he loved me in the same way I loved him."

She said that she had bought Kol some guinea pigs, after seeing how he responded to them sitting in his lap.

"I am blessed to have been able to have looked after Kol for the time I did," she added.

Blackburn said visiting the toddler in hospital, while at the same time building a homicide investigation, had been both unusual and challenging for officers.

"I think he's had a massive impact on a lot of people," she told me. "I still speak to some of the medical staff that looked after him and they found it the same.

"His resilience, I suppose, in hospital, because he would repeatedly get very, very unwell and would be told he was going to die, and then he would kind of make a recovery, back to this horrendous baseline that he would get back to."

She said she was "so grateful" that Kol had "found some peace" with his "incredible" foster family.

In March 2026, jurors cleared O'Connor and Coutts of murdering Kol, but found O'Connor guilty of manslaughter and Coutts guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child.

O'Connor was sentenced on Friday to 18 years' imprisonment and a five-year extended licence period, while Coutts was sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Judge Mr Justice Johnson said O'Connor had carried out a "deliberate, intentional assault" on an "innocent and defenceless two-year-old boy".

He said that Coutts "did not directly inflict the violence" but had "failed to take steps" to protect Kol despite knowing her new boyfriend was harming him.

Richard Murrison, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said Kol had been "catastrophically failed by the very people who should have cared for him most".

The court heard that O'Connor had previous convictions and cautions for violence including towards a male member of his family and towards an ex-partner and that Coutts had been advised to apply for police to release information about his background under Clare's Law but had not done so.

Coutts told the trial jury she had been unaware of his history and not known of his use of cocaine.

Police say she had moved home several times, between different local authorities, in the space of a year.

Asked about the repeated cancellation of visits by social workers, Bexley Council said a "multi-agency rapid review" had been carried out in May 2022.

Bexley SHIELD, the borough's Safeguarding Partnership for Children and Young People, said all of the review's "appropriate recommendations" had been implemented and "continue to be refreshed and promoted across agencies".

Blackburn believes Kol's severe facial bruising may have been seen by others and questioned why they had not tried to get help for him.

"I've never seen visible injuries on a child's face as bad as the ones that I saw in the photograph of Kol, and if I saw a child in the street myself, I would stop somebody and say: 'What's happened to that child?'

"Don't ever worry about wasting someone's time or being labelled a certain way. If it's a child, especially, or someone who's vulnerable, and you see them with injuries, then you've got to report it."

A spokesperson for the children's charity NSPCC said the case was "heartbreaking" and added that everyone has a part to play in "challenging things that don't seem right".

They said anyone with concerns about a child's welfare could contact their helpline anonymously.

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk