The family of a baby who was battered to death by her mum’s boyfriend have been are ‘disgusted’ as her killer could be allowed to roam the streets again.
Leonie Lewis was just 14-months-old when she brutally murdered and left covered in 50 bruises and marks by Liam Foster, now 44, on December 31, 2002.
She was also branded on her back with cigarette lighter and candle wax was found in her hair.
Leonie’s body was found by her mum at her home in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, just hours after she put her daughter to bed.
Foster, who was Leonie’s mum’s partner at the time, was found guilty of murder and was ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years behind bars.
Leonie’s family has been contacted by the parole board and informed that at his third request for release, Foster has been deemed suitable for transfer to an open prison.
The parole board said it was ‘not satisfied’ that release at this point would be safe for the ‘protection of the public’ but ‘placement in open conditions should be progressed’.
The statement has outraged Leonie’s family, who released a statement of their own reading: ‘What he did was despicable and unforgivable, he doesn’t deserve freedom. He took an innocent life.
‘Leonie didn’t get to meet all her milestones. She didn’t get to go to nursery or run around a park or a play centre, sing nursery rhymes she didn’t get her first day of school.
‘Leonie was robbed of so many things all at the wicked hands of Liam Foster! What he did was inhumane. He’s a murderer and people like him don’t deserve to walk these streets or to go on and live their life after taking another’s.
‘He needs to stay inside for life, that way he’s unable to hurt or inflict pain and injury upon anyone else.’
Foster, who was 24 when he was jailed in 2004, was said to have taken ‘sadistic pleasure in tormenting and burning young children.’
A motive for the killing was never put forward, but it was claimed that Foster never bonded with Leonie and killed her while her mum slept in the room next door.
The youngster was said to have been ‘beaten up cruelly’ and that to muffle her cries, she may have been smothered.
When he was jailed at Sheffield Crown Court, he was branded a ‘danger to young children’ and told he shouldn’t be allowed to live under the same roof as a child.
Mr Justice Henriques said Foster was guilty of ‘a callous and vicious killing’ and that very few criminals who end up in court ‘stoop so low’.
The judge said: ‘You showed that little girl not one shred of kindness. You abused her, you tormented her, you terrified her and eventually bruised her, you burned her and you killed her.’
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