The Tragic case of Finley Boden

Hello everyone and welcome back to Unthinkable, a True Crime Podcast. My name is Lisa. Thank you for joining me. And today's episode is the last episode of season one. Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me and have beared with me whilst I stumble over my sentences and get my words wrong. And I've also learned from the Garnet Spears' case that I can't say the word seizure properly. I still can't. Seizure. I can't say it. Anyway, so today's case is a heartbreaking one, I'm afraid, and it does involve the death of the baby.

And I know they're awful to listen to, and I was actually in the process of writing the script for a different episode, but then I came across this one and I couldn't stop myself from researching it and covering it. I think it's really important, as I've said before, to share these stories and to keep their memories alive. So today I'm going to talk about the tragic murder of 10-month-old Finlay Bowden. Oh, this is a really sad one, it really is. So little Finlay, he was born on the 15th of February 2020 to parents Shannon Marsden, who was 20, and Stephen Bowden, 28.

Now Shannon had been admitted to hospital for early induction due to concerns about the baby's growth. Now Finlay was safely delivered by Caesarean section. Finley stays in hospital with his mum for the first few days, but then he gets taken into care. And this is because so Finley has an older sibling who is also in the foster care system. So Shannon met Stephen Bowden when she was 17 and he was 25. Now these two both had very dysfunctional upbringings, they both had difficult family relationships, and Stephen was brought up in a very abusive household.

They both had mental health issues and they both started smoking cannabis from a very early age. Stephen was actually nine when he started smoking cannabis. Can you imagine? And Shannon, or she started smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol by the age of 10. So this is highly dysfunctional, and Stephen and Shannon, by the time they meet, they're both heavily addicted to cannabis. Now Shannon becomes pregnant very quickly with the couple's first child. The couple are already known to authorities. Stephen during his teenage years, he accumulated 22 convictions, including the abuse of a previous partner.

During Shannon's first pregnancy, healthcare professionals identified evidence of safeguarding issues, including poor home conditions, financial difficulty, constant conflict between the couple, and Stephen was actually in prison when Shannon gave birth. This was a short sentence for a non-compliance with a community order. Now, with support from safeguarding agencies, their newborn baby did stay with the parents, and the couple appeared to be managing quite well. But over the next few months, things began to slip and the living conditions began to deteriorate.

Social care workers actually say that the family were living in squalor. There was a strong smell of urine, cannabis, there was evidence of drug use, and the house was filthy and cluttered. And the social care worker reported a large amount of flies. Now, eight months after Shannon gives birth, her first child is taken into care. Shannon and Stephen visit their baby a handful of times, but they continue to test positive of cannabis and its high levels. They become quite uncooperative with agencies and social workers, so their first child remains in the foster care system.

In September 2019, Shannon informs social care services that she's pregnant for the second time. Shannon continues to smoke cannabis throughout her pregnancy. Now, as I said earlier, three days after Shannon gives birth to Finlay, he was taken into the foster care system. Arrangements are made for the parents to have supervised visits with Finlay, and surprisingly, this went well. Shannon and Stephen visited Finlay two times a week, and the social care workers say that they observed the parents interacting positively with Finley.

They said the pair were cuddling him and kissing him, and they referred to him as their baby boy. They said he was perfect and a cuddly chunky munchkin. And he really is the most adorable little boy. He's really smiley and cute, and there's a video, it was from the news when it reported of his death. Um, and he's giggling and he's got that really cute little baby laugh, and you can tell he's teething because you know everything's going in his mouth like they do. Oh, it's just so heartbreaking. Now we get to March 2020, and this is when the UK go into the dreadful COVID lockdown.

Now, routine home visits by social workers to the couple's home were impacted by COVID restrictions, but Shannon and Stephen were still able to have contact sessions with Finlay, and these sessions remain positive. Reports made by social workers describe the couple as attentive and loving parents. Now, as home visits to the couple's home have stopped, instead they are asked to send pictures of the house to show the couple making positive steps in the right direction in the hope that Finlay would eventually be returned.

Because they do want to return children to their parents, they want to make sure they support them in the right way so that they can get the children home. Now, contact visits over time increase in frequency and length, and eventually move from supervised sessions to unsupervised day visits. The couple had told social workers that they had stopped smoking cannabis, and due to COVID restrictions, the substance misuse services only were seeing high-risk users face to face because of COVID. And as Stephen and Shannon were not living with their children, they were deemed low-risk, so all appointments then were over the phone.

So their drug use was being self-reported with no actual ability for the services to check. So essentially, they have to just trust the couple are telling the truth. So the couple start sending pictures of their home showing it as clean and tidy. There are no signs of clutter, the kitchen and bathroom look well kept, and there's children's toys stacked up neatly in the living room. And this demonstrates to social workers and the courts that the environment is suitable for a child. And I mean, I don't know how much you can really tell from photos.

I feel like they could have just taken pictures where they've tidied it. You know, all the filth and clutter and drug paraphernalia could just be put in a different room for the photos, but we don't know, but they're giving them the benefit of the doubt anyway. So on the surface, it looks like Stephen and Shannon have cleaned and tidied over the house, and they've both stopped taking drugs. So this is all positive steps. Now Shannon makes a submission to court and she expresses a strong desire to have Finley back.

She states that she is happy at the prospect of his return and she understood the requirements needed to achieve it. Children's Family Court Advisory and Support Service, known as CAFCAS, they agreed that the couple had made significant positive changes to begin reuniting with Finlay permanently. They are now allowed overnight stays with Finley. On October 1st, 2020, the Crucial Family Court hearing began. Shannon and Stephen were involved, but they didn't appear in court due to COVID restrictions, so the hearing took place remotely over the phone.

All parties in the court agreed on the eventual goal of returning Finlay to his parents. Derbyshire County Council recommended a four-month transitional period so Finlay will be returned gradually, and the council also recommends that they start drug testing the couple properly to make sure the home environment is safe. Which sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? But Kafka, who represented Finlay in court, they recommended a shorter eight-week transition period and without mandatory drug testing.

They argue the council had not presented evidence showing the parents posed an unmanageable risk to Finlay through drug taking. But they they are known to have taken drugs and been very addicted in the past, so it would make sense to do drug testing. And remember, nobody's actually visited the home, so no one's been there to actually look around and check it out and see if it's a safe environment. This is all because of COVID, but no one's actually gone and visited to check. They are relying on the photographs the couple presented, and there have been no drug testing.

The family court accepted the Kafka's view that an eight-week transitional period was reasonable and ordered Finlay be returned to his parents without additional drug testing. Finlay's social worker was disappointed and frustrated by the outcome. She continued to believe a longer transitional period was in the child's best interest. She said she felt that the decision not to order further drug testing removed a valuable source to which they could monitor and challenge the couple's drug use, which is absolutely right, isn't it?

Why would you argue against that? This is when you're talking about returning a baby to a couple that have had a long history of drug abuse. It just doesn't make sense to me. And the fact that the home hasn't actually been checked. I know there's COVID restrictions, but surely if you've done a COVID test and it's negative, and the couple have done a COVID test and it's negative, surely you can go into the house just so you can have a look. It just doesn't make sense to me. They're just relying on photos, and the photos aren't of like the entire room.

They're photos of like, you know, you can only see like half of the room, you know, so you're not seeing the full picture anyway. Anyway, so following the hearing, a plan was provided detailing the increasing contact between Finley and his parents until he would return to their care entirely. It was also stated that there will be weekly unannounced visits from the social worker, and these will be face-to-face. Now, an unannounced is good. Quite often you hear a social worker's visits are planned, giving the family time to prepare the environment for the visit, but these are unannounced visits, so that takes that away.

So on the 17th of November 2020, Finlay is returned to his parents' care permanently. Two days after Finlay's return, a social worker visited the home and all appeared well, except that she noticed Finlay had a small bump on his head. When she asked about this, Stephen and Shannon explained that the bump had been caused by Finlay hitting his head with a toy. Now there's no evidence that the explanation given by the parents was explored, and the social worker didn't share the information about the bruise with her manager.

The following week, Finlay's healthcare worker finds out that Finley hasn't been registered yet at the local GP. Now she makes two unsuccessful attempts to speak with Shannon. She noted that she would continue to try and get in contact with the parents. Now that same week, the social worker goes round to do an unannounced visit. She knocks on the door and there's no answer. She says she's there for ten minutes knocking. She looks through the window and she sees baby Finlay and he's fast asleep, unattended on the sofa.

So she goes back and starts knocking on the door again, but there's still no answer. So she rings Shannon. Shannon is in and she said she's been upstairs and hadn't heard the door knocking. So Shannon lets the social worker in and they go to Finley. The social worker noted that Finley was a little groggy but seemed well, and she discussed with Shannon the risks of leaving Finley unattended on the sofa. This is all reported, but other than that, everything seems well. The couple seem to be doing well.

Finley seems, although he's groggy, he seems happy, and the house looks nice and tidy still. So on the 2nd of December, COVID lockdown restrictions tighten in the UK. On Tuesday, the 15th of December, Shannon cancelled a pre-arranged home visit from the health visitor, and she explained that Finley had COVID or COVID symptoms. Now this is why lockdown is so terrible. Caregivers could avoid social services simply by telling them either they or their child had COVID and they were isolating. So quite often, social care workers couldn't make their checks because the family wouldn't let them in and they had a really good excuse.

If you had COVID, you weren't allowed to come in contact with anybody else. And actually, between April 2020 and March 2021, so this covers the lockdown period, 223 children in the UK died from abuse or neglect. They can literally hide their children from safeguarding. Right, so we get to Wednesday the 16th.

He said that Finlay was asleep upstairs and he was displaying COVID symptoms and he was unwilling to wake him because he was not well. The social worker said that she needed to see Finlay and that would make contact to arrange a video call. The video call went unanswered. Now on Christmas Day, so 39 days after Finlay was returned to his parents, at around 2.30 in the morning, Shannon rang 999. She told the call handler that her 10-month-old baby boy Finley wasn't breathing and that he was blue. The call handler provided CPR instructions over the phone, and Shannon was heard attempting CPR while crying and being distressed.

Paramedics arrived within 10 minutes. They first noticed that the home was very unclean, it was extremely dirty, and they reported there was a very strong smell of cannabis. They enter the kitchen and they find Stephen attempting to perform CPR on Finlay on the kitchen floor. That has to be one of the worst things to witness, right? Performing CPR on a baby. Finlay was completely unresponsive. He was wearing filthy clothes, he had dirt under his fingernails, and he was in a very soiled nappy. And this is a ten-month-old baby.

Why are his nails dirty? Finlay was cold to the touch, and it was clear to paramedics that he had been dead for some time, longer than what his parents had claimed. Paramedics immediately started working on Finley, and they rushed him to Chesterfield Royal Hospital. But despite their desperate efforts, they couldn't help poor Finley, and he was pronounced dead at 3:45 a.m. on Christmas Day, on Finlay's first Christmas Day. Shannon and Stephen are at the hospital, and one of the nurses present, she hears Shannon say sorry to Finlay, telling him she let him down, but they also notice the couple's inappropriate behaviour.

So shortly after Finlay was pronounced dead, the couple are seen laughing. Medical staff notice a strong smell of cannabis around them, and they even overhear Stephen talking about selling Finlay's pram online. It's unbelievable, isn't it? Can you imagine? Your baby's just died. And you're laughing and joking and talking about selling his things.

Horrible. So uh the police come and they take Shannon and Stephen away to be interviewed at the police station. Now Finley's post-mortem revealed that the 10-month-old baby boy had suffered from severe physical abuse before his death. There were 130 individual injuries. Think of that tiny body, a baby's body, and there are 130 injuries. Oh, listen to this. So this includes 57 bone fractures. 57 fractures on a baby. And what's worse, 45 rib fractures. He had 45 rib fractures. He had fractures to his pelvis, his shoulders, his ankles, and he had 71 bruises.

He had burn marks that had been inflicted by a lighter. The toxicology report showed that there were traces of cannabis in his system. It's just horrendous. All of Finley's injuries were left untreated, so he would have been in absolute agony. I mean, I've broken my ribs before. I broke two, and it's so painful. It's so it's painful to breathe. I remember like having to sneeze, and it was like, oh, it was like being stabbed, it's horrible. And he's got so many fractures in his ribs. So all of his injuries go untreated, which obviously lead to infection, then pneumonia, and then sepsis.

And it's sepsis that kills him. It was stated that the rib fractures were caused by Finlay being stamped on.

Oh, just breaks my heart. I can't imagine the pain and the terror that helpless boy was in. He had been in their care for 39 days. Before that, he was happy, he had a lovely little life, he was giggly, he was smiley, was with people that loved him, and then he's handed to these two for 39 days, and the suffering he must have gone through is horrific at the hands of them. And that's his own mother. And he couldn't defend himself, he's helpless. Oh, like all he can do is cry. He can't do anything else.

Oh, they're just so evil, it's horrifying. So Shannon and Stephen were officially arrested late December 2020. The couple were released on bail under strict conditions, including no contact, which prohibited them from communicating with each other or seeing each other. But of course, they both repeatedly breached their bail conditions. They continued a secret relationship. They met up frequently and they sent cards and messages to each other declaring love for one another and support for one another.

Because of this ongoing contact, the pair were eventually rearrested and remanded in early 2022 until the trial. So the trial began on the 14th of November 2022 at Derby Crown Court. In court, it was confirmed that the couple repeatedly lied about their drug habit and the state of their home. They staged their house for the photos to make the house look clean and tidy in a safe environment from the child. In truth, by December 2020, the house had developed into an appalling condition. Drawers were shown photos of the property from when the paramedics were there.

And the house is filthy, it's cluttered, it smells of urine and cannabis. Images show Finlay's cot and some of his clothes, and they're covered in blood. And there's feces, there's a there's um gone-off baby milk formula, so it's out of date, and there's even gone off baby milk in a bottle, and it's curdled, so it's like in a baby's bottle, and it's just there left on the side, so God knows what they were letting him drink. And there was also cannabis. There was cannabis in the bedroom. The couple used COVID lockdown restrictions to stop social workers coming into the house and seeing the squalor conditions they were living in.

The court heard that money had been given to them by relatives for Finlay out of concern. But the couple spent this on cannabis. Shannon and Stephen had gone to extended family members to say that they were in a bit of financial difficulty. So family members were trying to help them out and provide money for Finlay for like basic needs, and they spent all of that money on cannabis. They received child benefit for Finlay. All of that money went on cannabis. That's all this couple did. That was their life.

It's disgusting. But they wanted Finlay back, but they must have only wanted him back for the money because they would get the child benefit money. You wouldn't fight for a child so hard and then treat him the way you do if you really wanted him.

It was also proven that they delayed calling the ambulance on Christmas Day, and the reason for this was so they could hide all their drugs and their drugs equipment from emergency services. Now, of course, Shannon, she tried to put sole blame on Stephen. She accused him of domestic violence, and that she was never there when any of the physical assaults took place. She claimed that he was violent towards her as well. And she says she wasn't there when any of the physical assaults took place. But he's injured.

Finley's gravely injured. He's got pneumonia. It's not like you wouldn't know. So if she's saying she never saw any of the attacks, she would see the aftermath. It was proven that Shannon worked with Stephen to cover up the abuse, to maintain their drug habit, and to keep social workers away. They had been working together. Now as a result of this, they both get convicted of his murder. So sentencing was on May 26, 2023. Stephen Bowden was sentenced to life in prison serving a minimum term of 29 years.

Shannon Marsden was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 27 years. She's 22 at this time, so she'll be out when she's 49. Should they be let out at all? I don't think anyone would benefit from these two and merging back into society. Do you? But that's just my opinion. I know there's rehabilitation and blah blah blah. So during sentencing, uh members of Finlay's wider family, they read their victim impact statements. They described baby Finley as a much loved baby boy and expressed severe heartbreak, and they referred to Shannon and Stephen as monsters.

And they are monsters, aren't they? I hope they have a terrible time in prison. They deserve nothing less than horrible things to happen to them. When Finlay was placed in foster care when he was a newborn, he was thriving. He was happy, and he was meeting all his milestones. And his parents on the surface looked like they had tried everything to get him back. They looked like they fought hard to get him back. And he wasn't even there six weeks when he was killed. I keep thinking about that, him being stamped on, and it's just I can't think of anything worse.

It's just awful. And I, you know, I think back to when my boys were babies. And I, you know, anyone oh my god, it I was terrible, especially with my firstborn. Like at night, I didn't sleep. I used to just sit by the cot and watch him because I was so terrified something was gonna happen to him. You know, I just it I can't, I just I can't compute it. It's so awful. Babies are so defenseless and they're so vulnerable, like they just need protecting, don't they? I can't why would anyone do this? I don't think their sentences are long enough.

I don't think they should ever come out. I think they should stay behind bars as anyone who does this sort of thing to a child or to anyone. It's horrible. So I want to dedicate this episode to Finley Bowden, that gorgeous little baby boy. And I hope wherever he is now he's happy and he's surrounded by love. Right, that's it for season one. Thank you for joining me today. I will be back next week for the start of season two, and I will do a lighter episode for the start of season two, um, just something a bit nicer.

I might try and look at sort of a ghost story or something like that. Um, I always find them quite fun. Anyway, let me know your thoughts on this case. I'd really like to know what you think. Um, if you'd like to leave me a review or any feedback, I'd be very grateful. Um, and I like to end as always by saying in a world where you can be anything, be kind. Take care, guys.

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