Welcome back to Crime Sunday! I hope you guys had a great week! I have been posting on Tiktok which has been fun and exciting that more people have heard the victim’s stories that I share! Today’s story makes me wonder why some woman are blessed with motherhood in the first place.
Kaylee-JadeOn January 31st, 2017 Nicola Priest, 20, gave birth to her daughter Kaylee-Jayde Priest. Kaylee’s biological father was not in the picture but Nicola began dating another man by the name of Daniel Gregory and in 2019 it was reported that the three of them were living in a two-bedroom apartment in Kingshurst, Birmingham. Kaylee attended preschool and was known to be a very happy child and rarely got upset. Nicola was active on Tiktok and posted quite a few dance videos of herself and some of her and Kaylee. If you saw these videos, you would think they had a fun mother-daughter relationship but soon you will learn that was not the case. In March 2020, Kaylee gave birth to Daniel’s son but soon after that, the two ended their relationship.
Nicola wasted no time moving on and by April 2020 she had a very serious relationship with a 22-year-old man by the name of Callum Redfern. It has been reported that Nicola was more interested in Callum than he was in her and it seems like Callum was just using Nicola. She begged her new boyfriend to move in with her but he refused and her apartment was more of a place for him to party with his friends and hook up with Nicola.
It got to a point where Callum was spending almost every night at Nicola’s apartment and neighbors reported hearing parties going on well into the late night hours. They also reported hearing both Callum and Nicola yelling at Kaylee all the time. It seems like Nicola didn’t prioritize Kaylee and wasn’t giving her the care a 3-year-old needs from her mother. One friend said he came to a party at the apartment and Kaylee had fallen asleep on the floor and Nicola just left her there while they partied late, she couldn’t even be bothered to put her daughter in her bed.
Nicola was a stay-at-home mom and she received government assistance to help pay for her apartment, food, and clothes. She had saved £900(about $1400) and she gave it all to Callum so he could purchase a car. She gave him this money because she was under the impression that this would make it easier for him to travel to her apartment to spend time with her. Callum never insured the vehicle and the car was impounded just a week later by police who ended up crushing the car. The car only cost Callum £600 and he blew the remaining £300 on himself.
Friends did have the best things to say about Nicola as a parent. They said she would hit Kaylee upside the head when she asked her Mom for food, she would refer to her as an “effing brat,” and her apartment was unkempt. Even Callum threatened Kaylee in front of their friends and would talk harshly toward her. If they could do this in front of people, it makes you wonder what they did when nobody else was around. It was also made known that Kaylee’s bedroom was just four walls as it didn’t have proper flooring, it didn’t have lights or hardly any toys for Kaylee. You would think if Nicola could save up to buy her boyfriend a car, she could buy her daughter a proper bedroom set up but Nicola just didn’t care.
Text messages exchanged between Nicola and Callum showed their true colors. Nicola texted Callum the following about Kaylee:
“I’m gonna kill her… because she keeps leaving the living room or going in the kitchen, so I’ve paled (hit) her one and smacked her for shitting in her nappy.” – Nicola
“Good – give her one for me.” – Callum
” I will babe.” – Nicola
A few days later Callum texted Nicola this.
“I’m going to keep the little brat away from me… sick of your spunking daughter.” – Callum
These messages make it seem as if the two were bonding over abusing Kaylee and encouraging each other to treat Kaylee in a horrific way.
On August 8th, 2020 Nicola and Callum had a few friends over to drink and she also posted on her Snapchat that she was “buzzing” from vodka. Kaylee was eating chicken and waffles when their friends arrived and went to bed around 7:30 but was having trouble falling asleep. Friends say Nicola and Callum went into her bedroom to hook up and Kaylee walked in on them which really upset them so they took their anger out on Kaylee. What exactly happened next is truly unknown, only Nicola and Callum know the answer to that but whatever happened caused Kaylee to vomit profusely and because neither one of them called the police until the next day, this beating ultimately cost Kaylee her life. Her injuries were so severe the medical examiner compared them to car crash injuries of 40mph or hitting concrete after falling from a three-story building. She also had old bruising and injuries which proved Kaylee was being physically abused by someone.
There is video footage from Nicola’s apartment that showed Nicola with her walking to the park and riding in an elevator. In these videos you can see that Nicola is not paying attention to Kaylee, instead keeps checking her own appearance in the mirror. The whole time Kaylee is looking up at her mom and never once does Nicola look at her daughter, hold her hand, or make sure she is keeping up with her. The whole time she is walking in front of Kaylee and there is no interaction between this mother and daughter. When this footage was brought up in court, Nicola used the excuse that she was tired. This is also the last known video of Kaylee, taken the day before she died.
Nicola and Callum were both arrested for willful neglect against a child and ill-treatment of a child. They were bonded out and Nicole continued to post on TikTok trying to portray herself as a grieving mother and being upset but it came across fake and not genuine.
During the trial, Nicola and Callum put the blame on each other for abusing Kaylee-Jade, neither one of them owned up to anything they put Kaylee through. Callum showed no remorse and even said because Kaylee wasn’t his child her death didn’t affect him. They were both found guilty of manslaughter. Nicola was sentenced to 15 years and Callum was sentenced to 14 years. This doesn’t seem like enough time for taking Kaylee’s life and all the abuse these two put her through during her short time on earth.
Nicola’s mom had called child services to check on the well-being of Kaylee but nothing was ever done. She is now grieving the loss of her granddaughter because of the actions of her daughter. Nicola’s other child is well taken care of by his father and I’m assuming he spent most of his time with his father before Kaylee’s murder because there wasn’t much information about how Nicola treated him in reports.
It seems as if the system failed to protect Kaylee as they have many other children in the past. I can’t imagine a child going through what Kaylee went through in her short life, some people don’t deserve to be blessed with children. A mother should never hurt her child! Nicola’s 15-year sentence isn’t justice in my eyes, she deserves to spend the rest of her life in there. Thank you for reading today’s true crime story, I am curious what you think of the guilty verdict, do you think justice was served?