Dead toddler’s head injury ‘deliberate’

A head injury which killed a toddler almost 50 years ago was more likely to have been caused by him being swung against a fireplace than him falling out of bed, a paediatrician has told a murder trial.

David Dearlove, 71, of Great Yarmouth, denies killing his stepson Paul Booth, aged 19 months, at the family home in Stockton, in October 1968. Teesside Crown Court heard the little boy’s brother claim that when he was three he saw Dearlove holding the toddler by the ankles. The trial continues next week.