‘If I was looking after her as usual, she would still be here now’: Grandmother of murdered Lola James tells of her guilt at taking the night off from babysitting duties when two-year-old was battered to death by evil stepfather

• Lola James, two, was brutally murdered by Kyle Bevan, 31, on July 17, 2020 
• Her grandmother Nicola feels guilty as she was unwell when due to babysit 

The grandmother of toddler Lola James, who was murdered by her evil stepfather, has said she feels guilty for being too unwell to babysit Lola the night she was murdered. 

Nicola James, 48, said Lola would ‘still be here now’ had she not been too sick to look after her, as she usually did.

‘It’s a decision I will regret forever,’ she told The Mirror. ‘I feel really guilty, I was only 15-minutes away from where Lola was attacked at the hands of a monster.’

Two-year-old Lola was murdered by Kyle Bevan, 31, on July 17, 2020, in Haverfordwest – suffering 101 injuries including brain damage similar to what is sustained in high-speed car-crashes. 

Bevan was found guilty of murder last week at Swansea Crown Court, while Lola’s mother Sinead James, 30, of Pembrokeshire, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death.

The grandmother of toddler Lola James, who was murdered by her mother’s boyfriend, has said she feels guilty for being too unwell to babysit Lola the night she was murdered

Two-year-old Lola was murdered by Kyle Bevan, 31, on July 17, 2020, suffering 101 injuries including brain damage similar to what is sustained in high-speed car-crashes

Grandmother Nicola said she has spent hours looking through photos since the trial, and insists there were no marks on Lola.

She fears Bevan, of Aberystwyth, must have injured Lola in the days leading up to the attack, as she said she looked after the tot most of the time, bathing her every day, and would have noticed something. 

Nicola claimed to have met Bevan just once during his relationship with Sinead. 

But she never trusted him, and knew her daughter had ended up in an abusive relationship.

Bevan wasn’t on the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme register, known as Clare’s Law, which gives women the right to know if their partner has an abusive past – and Nicola this meant social services would have been powerless.

READ MORE: Heartbreaking rollcall of murdered children were all failed by those meant to protect them 

However Nicola didn’t think he was ‘capable of murdering our lovely Lola’ and called him a coward for never explaining what happened that night.

Nicola is standing by her daughter, and has said she hopes she gets the help she needs while behind bars.

She also revealed she has been hounded by online trolls, who are ‘pointing the finger’ and accusing her of being involved in Lola’s murder – insisting she is a ‘good mother and grandmother’.

Nicola is calling for the law to be changed to allow for grandparents to have a say when it comes to funeral arrangements of murdered children. 

She said she smiles when she thinks of times with her granddaughter, including Lola painting her own nails, getting muddy in the garden and ‘raiding the fridge for yoghurt’. 

Lola’s mother Sinead James, 30, of Pembrokeshire, was found guilty of causing or allowing her death

Grandmother Nicola said she has spent hours looking through photos since the trial, and insists there were no marks on Lola (Pictured: Lola James held by her father Daniel Thomas)

The evil stepfather claimed Lola suffered her injuries after she was knocked down the stairs by the family pet dog. 

But at the trial, expert witness Ian Simmons, a consultant paediatric ophthalmologist, said: ‘It is highly unlikely they would have been caused by a fall down 10 carpeted stairs.

‘The most likely cause of her injuries is a form of abusive head trauma, possibly with some form of impact.’ 

Bevan, who is facing life in prison, and Sinead will be sentenced on April 25. 

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