A “cowardly and callous” teaching assistant repeatedly stamped on the stomach of his eight-months pregnant girlfriend to kill their unborn baby because he was not ready to be a father, a court heard.
Kevin Wilson, 22, and a 17-year-old friend put on motorcycle helmets to “brutally” attack 22-year-old Marks & Spencer worker Malorie Bantala near her home in Peckham, it is claimed.
The Old Bailey heard Wilson told Miss Bantala he did not want a child and even took her to an abortion clinic before he “deliberately targeted her stomach in order to destroy her unborn baby.”
The lifeless baby boy had to be delivered stillborn by emergency Caesarean section and Miss Bantala needed life-saving surgery after the attack on June 15 in Talfourd Place.
Prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC described it as a: “Cowardly and callous attack, each male wearing a motorcycle helmet in an apparent effort to conceal his identity.”
He added: “[Wilson] had made it clear that he didn’t want the baby to be born and was not pleased when Miss Bantala informed others that he was the father.
“We say he took matters into his own hands and decided that he would end the pregnancy by violence.
“And we further allege that he recruited the second defendant to help him in his mission.”
The court heard Miss Bantala had met Wilson in the summer of 2011 before they both started courses at the University of Bedfordshire, in Luton.
Wilson, from Bermondsey, started a sexual relationship with her Miss Bantala while they were at university, but split up during their first year, the court heard.
They rekindled their romance in the summer of 2014 during an end of university celebration trip to Ibiza, jurors heard.
Miss Bantala then fell pregnant after the pair had unprotected sex in a hotel on November 15 last year after Wilson offered to comfort her over the death of her five-year-old nephew, Cameron.
Jurors heard Wilson told Malorie he was not ready to have a child and when he found out she intended to keep it he asked: “Why are you doing this to me?”
He is even said to have arranged an abortion at an abortion clinic in Blackfriars and became angry when Malorie did not go through with it, according to the prosecutor.
Mr Rees added: “He told her that he was going to commit suicide and threatened to take a picture before he did it so he could inflict the same pain on her as she was inflicted on him.”
Wilson, of Stansfield House, Longfield Estate, Bermondsey, and the seventeen-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, deny causing grievous bodily harm with intent and child destruction.
The trial continues.