It is eight days since Paul Oldacre, 27, was jailed for life at Bristol Crown Court for the murder of seven-month-old Jamie.

The baby died of internal bleeding from a ruptured liver, following a hail of punches to the chest and abdomen.

Oldacre told the police he "snapped" on September 20 because Jamie wouldn't stop crying. Oldacre was minding the baby and his toddler sister at the family's home in Burbage Road.

Oldacre first claimed to the police and Sharon that he had accidentally sat on Jamie, who was pronounced dead at 6.33pm that day.

Sharon didn't find out the truth until the trial, having decided it was best not to talk about the tragedy while visiting her husband during his 14 months on remand in Horfield Prison.

Since the trial, people who know Oldacre have spoken about him in newspaper reports. Sharon has decided it is time her own voice was heard but it will be the first and last time she gives a newspaper interview about the worst period of her life.

She has asked the Evening Advertiser not to name her surviving child or to reveal her new address or other family details.

The couple were introduced by a mutual friend in 1996, hit it off and were married in August 1997. Their daughter was born the following January.

Paul Oldacre, who has two daughters from a previous relationship, was described in court as having a mental age of no more than eight, but to Sharon he was a normal man who explained his difficulty with reading and writing by saying he had never enjoyed school.

And he gave no hint of having a violent side. Bristol Crown Court heard from a doctor that Jamie was a well-nourished and cared-for baby.

The memory of her son's final moments in Princess Margaret Hospital, after she and her husband made a dash by ambulance, is imprinted on her memory. Paul had called her at work, saying he had accidentally sat on the baby.

"Paul and I were waiting in a separate room. A doctor came and said it didn't look like they could do anything else for Jamie, but she went to check again.

"She came back about five minutes later and told me there was nothing more to do. They wanted me to hold Jamie when they switched the machine off.

"It took me about ten minutes to get myself to walk through. I took him off the bed and held him and they switched the machine off. All this air came out of him I thought he was breathing, I thought he was still alive.

"I panicked and told the nurse he was still alive, but she said no, it was just the air coming out of his body. Paul was there. I asked him if he wanted to hold Jamie to say goodbye. He said: 'No, I can't hold him.'"

It was then that family members, alerted by earlier telephone calls, began to arrive, followed by the police.

Sharon and her daughter spent the night at Sharon's mother's home, but the next evening Sharon had to return to Burbage Road for clean clothing. Police had taken away the baby's cot and the couple's sofa for forensic tests.

"I walked through the door and Jamie's baby walker was by the telly. That's when I realised he had gone."

Throughout the day that turned out to be Jamie's last, Sharon had had an eerie sense that something bad was going to happen.

It started when she went to work at her job in a factory early that morning, leaving unemployed Paul to look after the children.

"Jamie was not awake when I left, neither was Paul or my daughter. I kissed my daughter on her cheek and kissed Jamie. I kissed Paul on his forehead because he was snoring.

"I walked out and round the corner to catch a bus. I saw two go past, then another, so went to see a friend who works in the same place and drives to work. We got into the car and it wouldn't start. I said it had to be a sign something was telling me I shouldn't be going to work. That whole day at work, things were going wrong."

Paul Oldacre was arrested for murder shortly after Jamie's death and remanded in custody. Believing his story of sitting on Jamie, and unaware that he had already told detectives the truth, Sharon visited him several times in Horfield.

"When they arrested him, I was never told what had happened, and a part of me didn't want to know. He had never been violent before. For the 14 months he was on remand, I believed he had accidentally sat on my son.

"When I heard Paul's statement in court, it was a shock. He had never said he couldn't cope with the kids.

"I remember looking at him on three occasions twice at the start of the tape of his statement and once at the end. There was a part of me that wanted to lash out and kill him.

"I wasn't there for the end of the court hearing. The investigating officer, phoned through and told me.

"Part of me was expecting the verdict and a part of me... I realised Paul wasn't the person I had known for years."

Sharon says one of the most painful things about the visits to Oldacre while he was on remand was his facial resemblance to the son he was later convicted of murdering.

She has yet to decide whether she can bear to have contact with Oldacre in the future. But the future is something she is looking to for other reasons.

She explains: "I have a daughter to think about she needs a roof over her head and food in her stomach. I'll look after her."