September 2017: Now back in Selby

March 2009

Selby child abuser Ashton Kerr jailed

A REMORSELESS thug is starting a three-year jail sentence for carrying out a string of “sickening” attacks on a three-year-old boy.

Unemployed Ashton Kerr’s catalogue of abuse saw him stub out a cigarette on the child’s body, beat him with a strap and rain punches on his little victim.

Even as he was punished for his “cruel and awful” crimes, the 27-year-old, of Selby, smirked in the dock at York Crown Court before being taken away to begin his spell behind bars.

Kerr admitted causing actual bodily harm to the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, while his partner, Tammie Timbrell, 24, of Kitchener Street, Selby, sobbed in court as she was handed a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for witnessing the attacks on the child. She had pleaded guilty to child neglect charges.

Rupert Dodswell, representing the Crown Prosecution Service, told the court Kerr had punched the boy on a number of occasions and said: “This was a series of very cruel injuries caused to a vulnerable child.”

A medical report read out in court stated the child’s injuries were caused by a strap, a blunt object and Kerr’s fists, adding: “Extensive force would have been required to cause injuries of this nature.”

Sentencing Kerr, the Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, said: “You have shown very little remorse for your actions, causing injuries of a very serious nature.”