Mum and ex-partner guilty after death of baby son
A MOTHER sobbed and screamed ‘murderer’ at her ex-partner yesterday after they were both found guilty of being responsible for the death of her three-week-old son.
Stanley Davis died in hospital from a broken skull and brain haemorrhage aged only 24 days, after previously sustaining 41 other fractures.
Roxanne Davis, 30, and Samuel Davies, 24, had denied causing or allowing his death on March 28 last year but were convicted by a jury. After the verdicts were announced Davis broke into tears and shouted: ‘You have got it wrong, Sam, just tell them you done it. Thanks a lot Sam, you murderer.’
Judge Jane Miller, QC, remanded the pair in custody for sentencing next month. Winchester Crown Court heard the couple, who were not married but share similar surnames, had a troubled relationship and had frequent arguments which sometimes turned violent in the days following Stanley’s birth.
Police were called to their flat in Gosport, Hampshire, on March 11 after neighbours reported them shouting.
Footage from an officer’s body camera showed Davis holding the tiny baby in her arms. Davies, who was not Stanley’s father, claimed he had been arguing with a friend about borrowed money. He then stormed out of the flat.
Davis told the officer that her boyfriend suffered from mental health problems.
The jury was told Stanley had been admitted to hospital for 32 rib fractures and nine more to his arms and legs on three occasions before the fatal head injury was inflicted.
Prosecutors said one of the pair had killed Stanley and the other ‘allowed it to happen’, but they could not say who played which role.
Both co-defendants tested positive for cocaine and cannabis when they were arrested on March 21. Stanley was dead a week later.
After the verdicts, police said the baby’s injuries, which included a three-inch skull fracture, had been ‘truly shocking’.