Jury to consider baby death verdict (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Jury to consider baby death verdict

A JURY was due to retire today to consider its verdict in the case of a Salisbury man accused of murdering his four month old son.

Joseph Wainwright (27) is alleged to have lost his temper and shaken the boy so hard he died from head and chest injuries.

A court has heard that Wainwright had been left in sole charge of baby Joshua while his partner, mother-of-two Katrina Drake, visited her mother in London.

But just hours after she left, Wainwright called emergency services in a panic, saying Joshua had choked on his own vomit and stopped breathing.

The baby was rushed to hospital, where doctors discovered Joshua had a massive trauma to the head.

Two days after he was admitted to hospital, on September 17, 2002, Joshua died from his injuries and his father was arrested for murder.

Winchester Crown Court has heard that Joshua, despite being born four weeks prematurely, had been a fit and healthy child and had been given a clean bill of health just one month earlier.

Gordon Bebb, prosecuting, said that paediatricians found internal bleeding in Joshua's eyes and head, typical of injuries caused where a parent had "lost his temper and shaken a baby hard".

Wainwright maintains that he did not shake the baby and is adamant that the baby accidentally choked on its vomit.

The court heard that, after he was arrested, Wainwright, who is unemployed, told police that after Joshua stopped breathing he had tried to wind the child by putting him on his front and tapping his back. When this failed, he telephoned 999.

Wainwright, of Pullman Drive, denies murder.

The trial continues.