Man accused of shaking toddler to death says they were ‘building a bond’
A man accused of shaking his girlfriend’s one-year-old son to death said he “didn’t really know how to look after” a child of that age but denied having any “ill feeling” towards him, telling jurors the pair were “building a bond”.
Paula Roberts, 41, left her son Charlie in the sole care of her partner Christopher Stockton, 38, at her Darlington home while she went for an eye test in January.
Charlie, who was aged one year and 10 months at the time, suffered an unsurvivable head injury, which prosecutors claim was caused by Stockton who had stayed up late playing video games.
Stockton (pictured) denies murder and neglect, and told his trial he rang 999 for Charlie after the toddler “went floppy” and started “gasping for air” while they were playing.
On Thursday he told Teesside Crown Court he had a disabled son of his own and started a relationship with Roberts after his marriage broke down.
He said he first met her children on Charlie’s first birthday.
Asked by his barrister Jamie Hill KC how he found being around Charlie, Stockton said: “It was a new experience. I’d never been around a child of that age with my son being in hospital (when he was young).
“It was a learning curve, I didn’t really know how to look after him properly, but we started to build a bond.”
Asked if he “harboured any ill feeling towards” Charlie, Stockton replied “No”, adding that he was “usually a well-behaved child”.
He said the relationship with Roberts was “rocky” at times, and four months before Charlie’s death she suggested Stockton had “smothered” him to stop him crying. Stockton said he was “upset and hurt” at the suggestion.
He was also asked about an occasion when Roberts accused him of flicking Charlie’s eye, and told the court he had been flicking a fly away from the boy’s face.
Stockton said that in the days before Charlie’s death, Roberts believed the boy had fallen out of bed, leading to the bruising found on his ear, and that he may have had concussion from the fall.
He told the court he had volunteered to look after Charlie when Roberts went for her eye test on January 12 to “make it easier for her”.
Asked if he had any problems looking after Charlie, he said: “No, other than being poorly myself but he was easy to look after.”
The court heard Stockton had stayed awake until 5.30am and set an alarm for 8.30am.
He said he had stayed awake through the night “on many occasions” and was “quite good at managing myself”.
“I didn’t find myself more tired than I would be usually,” he told jurors.
He said Charlie was initially “upset and quiet” when Roberts left the house that day but seemed to calm down.
Stockton told the court Charlie started to cough as they were playing and lifted his arms up “as if to say ‘I need help’”.
“I picked him up and lifted him on my knee. At first he was rigid in himself and then he went floppy… he just flopped.”
Stockton said he initially thought Charlie was choking on an oat from a biscuit so patted him on the back and put his finger down the boy’s throat to see if anything was lodged there.
He told jurors he called 999 when Charlie started “gasping for air”.
Roberts was also on trial for neglect, having denied the charge, but entered a guilty plea on Tuesday.
She admitted failing to seek medical help for Charlie in December and January after he suffered injuries to his private parts and his ear.
Jurors were told that Charlie suffered bruising in the months before his death.
They were told Roberts installed a spy camera above his cot and told her brother in August that she hid it in a plant pot as she was concerned about Stockton.
Stockton made a 999 call on January 12 in which he repeatedly said “come on mate” and “wakey wakey” to the little boy, who was not breathing.
The call-handler talked him through how to perform CPR and at one point Stockton, who was off work ill, said he would pass out if he tried to count the compressions he was doing on the toddler.
Stockton later told paramedics, doctors and police that Charlie had choked on a biscuit and that he patted the child on the back and stuck his fingers down the toddler’s throat.
Charlie died in hospital the next day.
The trial continues.
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