Stabbing exposed son’s vital artery
ARUNCORN dad has been caged for 12 years for stabbing his own son in the neck in a ‘drink and drugfuelled’ jealous rage after a paternity row and finding his brother in bed with his on-off partner.
Jurors found the man, who cannot be named to protect the toddler’s identity, guilty by unanimous verdict of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm at Chester Crown Court at about 1pm on Friday.
The trial heard how the child’s mother had been the defendant’s on-off partner and had awoken at around 4am on March 20 last year to sounds of her little boy, aged two, crying.
She entered his room to discover him bleeding with a ‘gaping’ 3cm wound in the side of his neck, and estimated to be several centimetres deep.
At the man’s sentencing this afternoon, the court hear the boy made a full recovery and he and his brother are in foster care awaiting adoption.
Oliver King, prosecuting, told jurors how the wound inflicted on the two-year-old could have been lethal and was so severe it left the vital carotid artery exposed, although thankfully undamaged.
He said the defendant had taken cocaine and drunk alcohol the previous evening with his two brothers and a friend before they had drifted back to the woman’s house, where she lived with his and her two sons.
A row ensued about who the boys’ real father was, with one witness describing the man’s turn of mood as ‘fiery’.
At a later date, DNA tests would prove his paternity for the two boys but the defendant had become ‘paranoid’ on other occasions about the children.
After the argument, which happened at a house in Runcorn, one of the man’s brothers retired to bed in the woman’s bedroom.
She later went up to the same bed.
The court heard how the defendant, who is in his mid-30s, thought something sexual might be going on in the room, and he made repeated trips up and down the stairs to check, poking his ● head round the door then retreating downstairs.
At one point he said he entered the room to find his brother’s trousers halfway down – the woman made a similar point but said she had rejected the brother’s request for sexual activity while the brother himself said nothing happened whatsoever.
The defendant told the court that upon discovering the scene he said ‘what the f***’s going on?’ before leaving.
He claimed the woman had suggested having a ‘threesome’, while she said his brother had made such as suggestion but she had refused, and the brother said no such thing happened.
Within hours, the woman awoke to hear her toddler son crying.
The child’s dad made the 999 call – sparking suspicions about his potential role in the injury because he told the operator the toddler had been ‘stabbed with a knife’, raising concerns over how he knew that.
The defendant claimed in court he had been told by his on-off partner.
Mr King pressed him on why he had not said that during a police interview when it was an important feature of what had happened and he had been in custody long enough to sober up to be fit for interview.
Other evidence came from the civilian detention officer, who said she had not observed such odd behaviour as shown by the man in the cells ‘to this extent’ during her 30-year career – with the apparently guilt-racked suspect ‘tapping his head on the walls and swaying’, and at times on the floor rocking in the foetal position’.
At one point she had to remove a jumper which he had started to pull around his neck in case of hanging, and she overheard him muttering ‘what have I done?’ when she listened through the peephole to check on him.
Mr King said: “These were the words of a man deeply troubled trying to come to terms with what he had done, having stabbed his own son in the neck in a fit of anger.”
The defendant claimed that what he said to the custody officer while his jumper was being removed had meant ‘why am I here?’, but the guilty verdict indicated that jurors accepted her evidence over his.
But the prosecution countered, saying it was clear he knew why he was there, while he was ‘banging his head on the walls’.
He told the court that it was the defendant who had been up and down the stairs all night.
A medical examination of the wound described it as a ‘serious injury, potentially life-threatening’ and ‘most likely caused by a sharp object such as a knife’.
Mr Watson, defending, had accused the prosecution case of being built on unreliable witnesses who had lied.
Jurors were convinced of the man’s guilty, however, and returned their unanimous guilty verdict.
Mr King told the court there were aggravating features in the case including disposal of evidence, namely the weapon that was never found, a vulnerable victim and a ‘life-threatening injury’.
Tom Watson, defending, said his client was of previous good character, hard-working and had inflicted a single ‘drug and alcohol-fuelled’ blow during behaviour that was ‘out of character’.
Sentencing the defendant to 12 years in prison, Recorder Stephen Riordan QC said that although no-one could know for sure, the stabbing appeared to be ‘an attempt to get at (the woman)’.
Sending the man down, he said: “You were taken to a police station, you were put in a cell, your behaviour in the cell indicated quite clearly to me, and I would have thought the jury, that at that point you were extremely remorseful for what you had done.
“You were saying ‘what have I done, what have I done?’ repeatedly.
“Sadly you have not carried that remorse to the court. You tried to deceive the jury with the evidence but the jury saw through that deception.
“What you did that night nobody saw, but the medical evidence makes quite clear you stabbed (the boy) with a sharp object such as a knife, being an injury to the side of the neck.”
He added: “The injury was so serious that one suspects had it been a little way in either direction, it may well have proved fatal and you would have faced a murder charge.” FREE ERYON DELIVORDE RS ALL OVER