Guilty

Seven-month-old Jamie Oldacre died of internal bleeding after his liver was ruptured three times.

His father Paul, 27, who has a mental age of eight, attacked the baby while his wife Sharon was out at work.

After being found guilty, he stood impassively in the dock at Bristol Crown Court while the Judge Mr Justice Butterfield told him: "You have been convicted of the murder of your own child. The murder of a child by his parent is a terrible offence. The law permits me to pass only one sentence that you will go to prison for life."

The court heard that Oldacre, formerly of Burbage Road, Penhill told detectives who asked about Jamie: "He whinged. I got up, I got a bit funny because I like staying in bed.

"I got up and lost my temper with him and that's when it all started.

"I was telling him to shut up crying but he carried on crying and would not stop and that drove me to the point where I started hitting him.

"I got to boiling point, that's when I started punching him in the stomach and in the chest."

Asked by detectives why he had hit Jamie, Oldacre replied: "I intended to hurt him, to stop him from crying."

Psychiatrists told the court that Oldacre's IQ was 70, putting him in the lowest two per cent of the population in terms of intelligence.

The jury heard that on the morning of the day of Jamie's death in September last year, Sharon Oldacre went to her job at a factory leaving him looking after their two children.

At about 4.30pm that afternoon Oldacre telephoned his wife, telling her he had accidentally sat on the baby and that the baby had turned a funny colour.

Mrs Oldacre went back to their home with her supervisor, a first aider, and found Jamie lying on the sofa, pale and blue at the lips. He was taken to PMH but was pronounced dead at 6.33pm.

Pathologist Dr Hugh White performed the post mortem, and discovered that Jamie had more than 20 bruises on his chest, abdomen, legs and face. He also discovered three broken ribs and three splits of the liver, from which Jamie had bled to death internally, losing a third of his blood.

At an earlier hearing, Oldacre admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and a lack of relevant intent, but the Crown rejected this and insisted on a murder charge.

The jury of eight women and four men took three hours and 56 minutes to deliver their majority verdict.

Oldacre's counsel Martin Meeke QC urged the judge to take into account psychiatrists reports suggesting that his client would suffer in prison unless placed in a special unit.

The court had previously heard that Oldacre had tried to harm himself while on remand, swallowing batteries, razor blades and liquid deodorant.

Sharon Oldacre, who has moved house, was not present in court to hear the verdict.