A man was filmed laughing when he was told his mum had been murdered – but he knew all along who had killed her.
Lewis Bush even pretended to act shocked when he was confronted by police and said: ‘You’re joking? What? My mum is dead? Serious? You are joking me? My mum’s gone?’
The 26-year-old had subjected his own mother Kelly Pitt, 44, to years of domestic abuse before he savagely beat her to death in May this year.
He killed her in a vicious attack at her home in Newport, Wales, in which she suffered 41 broken ribs.
Bush was caught on camera feigning shock at the news she had died when he was arrested by police.
‘Murder? Are you joking me?’ he said as he laughed after being handcuffed.
Bush can also be heard on camera telling police he is worried they are going to beat him up while showing no emotion of his mum’s death.
He said: ‘You won’t harm me or nothing will you? It seems like you’re all going to fill me in.’
Newport Crown Court previously heard Bush carried out a ‘ferocious and sustained assault’ but escaped before his mother was found by a neighbour.
Prosecutor Chris Rees KC said the flat door was open in her home in Newport, Gwent and ‘it looked as if Kelly Pitt had been battered’.
She was found on a blood-soaked bed, covered in a duvet, and was declared dead at the scene.
A post-mortem examination by Dr Edwards Williams found ‘severe blunt-force trauma to the head, neck and trunk’.
Ms Pitt suffered internal bleeding and 41 rib fractures along with mirror glass and clumps of hair found around her body.
Mr Rees described her as a ‘vulnerable woman with alcohol issues’ who was 5ft 5in and ‘in no position to fight off the attack’.
Blood on the pyjama trousers worn by Ms Pitt matched that of Bush and Mr Rees said the victim ‘would have suffered considerable physical pain before her death’.
The mother-of-three – whose daughter Lauren had previously died – made a call to her daughter Jordan two days earlier where Bush could be heard verbally assaulting her.
Her last words to her daughter were a plea that she call the police – but she never made that call.
She messaged for two days asking if her mum was OK. But then she rang and her brother answered to say said their mum was unwell in bed and was ‘in no fit state’ to see her.
Mr Rees said Bush ‘left her there for dead’ and CCTV footage showed him at a nearby cash point and buying a bottle of lager on May 12.
At the time of the murder, Bush was subject to bail conditions for assaulting his mum in February and was banned from contacting her.
He also had multiple previous convictions, including for battery against his mother and sister.
Mr Rees said Ms Pitt was ‘subjected to domestic violence for many years’ by Bush.
Reading a victim impact statement, Jordan Bush said her mother was ‘caring, loving, funny and bubbly’ and described her as a ‘warm welcoming lady who made sure everyone was well looked after’.
She said she did not call the police when asked because she thought things would be sorted by the next day, as they had been previously.
‘I have to live with that guilt every day,’ she said.
Addressing her brother in the dock, she added: ‘Our mother will never get to see her granddaughter grow up because of what you did.
‘I am now alone without a mum, sister or brother because you are no brother of mine.’
Bush, of Newport, was jailed for life with a minimum of 16 years at Newport Crown Court. He changed his plea to guilty just weeks before the trial was due to start.
Judge Daniel Williams said: ‘Over the years, the court has heard, you subjected your poor mother to a great deal of violence.
‘You bullied her and others in your family. You were on bail for having assaulted your mother when you murdered her.
‘That Kelly’s life should end as it did is a wrong that no sentence will right.’
After the case, detective chief inspector Virginia Davies, the senior investigation officer in the case, said: ‘The family of Kelly Pitt are left devastated by the loss of their beloved mother, grandmother and sister at the hands of her son.
‘I want to reassure anyone coming forward to report domestic abuse or violence against women and girls that there is a wide range of support services available, and we urge you to come forward.’
Earlier this month, a 20-year-old man admitted killing his own mum after she was found dying with ‘serious facial injuries’.
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