Dad ‘ made excuses’ for son’s death

A MAN accused of murder made “excuses” and blamed other people after his son lost consciousness, a court has been told.

Crown prosecutor Nathan Crane closed his case against Nicholas Baxter, 37, in Townsville Supreme Court yesterday.

Mr Baxter, a former army corporal, allegedly shook or struck his six- week- old son Matthew to death on November 3, 2011.

Mr Crane said Mr Baxter showed no panic in a triple- 0 call that was played to the court.

“Where is the acknowledgment that he is losing his son? Where is the screams down the phone?” he said.

Mr Crane said Mr Baxter told his wife Tenae “untruthfully” that a paramedic stumbled and banged Matthew down on the ambulance bed.

During the trial, Townsville Hospital paediatric Dr Susan Ireland said she had a conversation with the Baxters about suspected head trauma.

“If Dr Ireland said to you, ‘ We think your son has been abused’, wouldn’t you say, ‘ By who?’” Mr Crane said.

“You’d say ‘ I’m always with him, I’m bathing him, I’m changing his nappy … how could this happen?

“Or would you say, ‘ This is the first time I’ve been left alone with him’?”

Prosecution witness paediatric radiologist Dr Anthony Lamont had told the court Matthew had two sets of 17 rib fractures that were three weeks and seven to 10 days old at the time he died.

Mr Crane said two of Mr Baxter’s defence witnesses, American doctors Marvin Miller and David Ayoub, who told the court Matthew had rickets rather than fractures, had “invented a disease”.

“Dr Lamont has nothing to gain from this trial … he has 44 years of paediatric experience,” Mr Crane said.

Mr Crane said it was likely Mr Baxter’s family, his wife Tenae and her family members, had embellished their evidence about his character.

Justice David North began summing up the trial late yesterday afternoon. He said his summing of the five- week trial would be “lengthy” and the jury was not likely to be sent out until tomorrow.