The mother of a baby boy shaken to death by his ch

The mother of a baby boy shaken to death by his childminder told an Old Bailey jury today (Tues) that her nanny was often in a bad mood.

Elizabeth Osborne said she became annoyed with carer Linda Bayfield after she ignored strict instructions not to put her seven-month-old son Joshua in a baby walker.

Mrs Osborne, an IT support consultant, said her baby craved attention and loved to be cuddled.

But Bayfield, 54, shook little Joshua so violently his head was ‘sent backwards and forwards with tremendous force’, jurors have heard.

Despite desperate efforts to keep baby Joshua alive he died six days later of brain and eye haemorrhages – exactly eight months after he was born.

As her son fought for his life, a ‘very cruel doctor’ at the hospital told her ‘only one in a hundred babies survive that level of injury’, she recalled.

Mrs Osborne, smartly dressed in a black suit and lime green blouse, bravely told the court how she and her husband formed a trusting relationship with Bayfield.

The couple, of Mulberry Lane, Addiscombe, met and interviewed Bayfield back in 1995 when they were looking for a childminder for their daughter Katrina, now aged six.

Both she and archivist husband Ken were ‘very impressed’ with Bayfield because of the way she cared for their daughter, a cystic fibrosis sufferer.

When Joshua was born in November 1999, the couple continued to drop off Katrina at Bayfield’s home in Sissinghurst Road, Croydon.

When Joshua was five-months-old, they decided to leave their son with Bayfield for one day each week.

‘We had decided we wouldn’t be able to trust anyone else with Joshua, Mrs Osborne told jurors.

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The mother had been told by her nurse sister that baby walkers are detrimental when a child is learning to walk.

Bayfield disagreed but accepted the instruction, the court heard.

‘I had written in the contract for Joshua that I didn’t want him to use the baby walker.

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By June, Bayfield was looking after little Joshua, then aged seven months, for four days each week.

Mrs Osborne said: ‘On a number of occasions when I arrived in the evening he was sitting in the baby walker.

‘I felt my request had been ignored and I felt annoyed but I didn’t say anything because at that time Linda had appeared in not a very good mood.

I felt it wasn’t the right time to take issue with it.

‘In each instance it had been a bad atmosphere and I just wanted to go.

The mood wasn’t right.

‘In the evening I would often find Linda to be in a bad mood, often snapping at the other children.

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Mrs Osborne told jurors she had seen Bayfield shouting at other children in her care ‘disproportionate to their degree of naughtiness’.

She hadn’t seen Bayfield behave in that way before but the occasions became more and more regular, said Mrs Osborne.

‘She appeared more tense.

There were good days and bad days.

There seemed to be one little girl she favoured.

‘She treated her in a very loving and affectionate way.

She was not as loving with Joshua.

The weekend before the incident the Osbornes celebrated a family birthday party where Joshua was ‘very joyful and cheerful’.

The following day when Mrs Osborne collected Joshua from Bayfield’s home in Sissinghurst Road, Croydon, he was sitting in a baby walker.

‘Again I felt slightly annoyed.

I picked him up.

He was fine and he gave me a big smile.

‘He liked to be cuddled, made a fuss over and entertained.

I had told Linda this and she didn’t have a problem with this.

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On July 4, Joshua and his sister were taken to the defendant’s home as usual.

About mid-morning Mrs Osborne received a telephone call from Bayfield saying something had happened.

‘To start with she didn’t say anything.

Then she spoke to say something along the lines of, ”It’s Joshua, he’s stopped breathing and that he’s been taken by ambulance to Mayday”.

‘She said Joshua had cried out and stopped breathing.

She said she slapped his face and flicked water at him to try and get him to breathe again.

‘She said he began to breathe again, went to call an ambulance and while waiting, he stopped breathing again.

‘I was hysterical.

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After contacting her husband, both parents raced to Mayday Hospital, in Croydon where their son was fighting for his life.

They met Bayfield at the hospital who appeared ‘flustered’, said Mrs Osborne.

‘She gave me a hug and I asked what had happened.

I was concerned that he had choked on something because he was teething quite badly.

‘She assured me that nothing had happened and had simply become unwell.

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Little Joshua was transferred to Guy’s Hospital in central London where a doctor bluntly told the couple their son’s condition.

‘He was a very cruel doctor.

He said, ”Do you realise that only one in a hundred babies will survive this level of injuries – of those, all are brain damaged”.

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Mrs Osborne said she spoke to Bayfield on a number of occasions while their son was in a critical condition.

‘She was very upset because the police had become involved and because she was told she couldn’t look after other children.

‘She said she was being treated unjustly.

She didn’t express any concern or regret for Joshua.

‘When he died he rang Linda the following day.

She was upset and sad.

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Mr Nicholas Loraine-Smith, prosecuting, has told the jury: ‘The Crown say this defendant lost her temper and shook that child so hard even the best efforts by hospital staff were unable to save his life.

‘She reacted in an extreme manner to some aspect of Joshua’s behaviour which particularly angered her that afternoon.

‘Whether it was his crying of something else, we will probably never know.

‘The defendant had to be perfectly aware that in violently shaking a seven-month-old baby, sending his head backwards and forwards with tremendous force, really serious injury was a virtual certainty if not inevitable.

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Bayfield, of Sissinghurst Road, Croydon, denies murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter on July 10 last year.

The trial continues.

ends