Music producer jailed for 42 years over boy's 'pogo stick' murder

A Christian hip hop producer admitted a bizarre discipline ritual was behind the death of a seven-year-old boy who was found dead in his music studio.

Kodi Maybir will serve up to 42 years in prison for the boy's murder. He originally tried to blame the death on the boy falling from a pogo stick.

He later admitted the boy died after he fell from a coffee tin during one of the 'disciplinary' sessions.

Maybir inflicted such brutal injuries to the back of the little boy's head in southern Sydney in May 2013 that it fractured the child's skull and knocked him unconscious.

Kodi Maybir inflicted such brutal injuries to the back of the little boy's head in southern Sydney in May 2013 that it fractured the child's skull and knocked him unconscious.

The 32-year-old and his then-partner, the boy's mother Kayla James, did not seek medical help for the child until the following morning, when his tiny, underfed body was cold and stiff.

Maybir was sentenced in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday to a minimum of 31 and a half years behind bars with a maximum term of 42 years, meaning that even with time served, he will not walk free until 2045 at the earliest.

Kodi Maybir's "horrific, horrendous, inhuman" treatment of the boy, who died at Maybir's Oatley music studio in Sydney's south in May 2013, was in the worst category of offences, crown prosecutor Chris Maxwell told the NSW Supreme Court in February.

Court heart the boy was Maybir's girlfriend's son and had been subjected to a series of twisted punishments, many of which were recorded on home video.

He had been forced to run on the spot until he was exhausted and struck repeatedly with a wooden spatula.

Justice Robert Allan Hulme said it was still unclear exactly how the boy had died, as Maybir had repeatedly lied to the court and had given four different versions of what caused the boy's fatal injuries.

"They have been pretty poor attempts on each occasion," Justice Hulme told the court.

During the trial, numerous videos of the boy that were taken in the lead up to his death were played to the court.

In one, Maybir encourages the boy's siblings to punch the boy, who cannot be named, while in others the boy's mother, Kayla James, calls him a "little s***".

James is serving at least 10-and-a-half years for the boy's manslaughter.

Maybir also made the boy eat his own faeces, wear a dirty nappy on his head and undertake gruelling exercise regimes.

In one punishment he made the boy stand barefoot on a coffee tin with outstretched arms.

Maybir claimed he was just "fooling around" when he grabbed the boy and threw him in a wrestling move and said at trial this was how the seven-year-old's fatal injuries were incurred.

"It is a highly unusual, one must say, cruel act," Mr Maxwell said.

He said Maybir had committed the murder in circumstances of aggravation and asked Justice Hulme to sentence Maybir to jail "for the term of his natural life".

News break – March 4