Man accused of baby murder insists he would ‘never hurt a child’

The alleged killer of a baby boy told police he found him lying face down on his bedroom floor after he heard a ‘bang and a little squeal’.

Jacob Lennon was 15 months old when he was taken to hospital from the family home in Putney, southwest London, with serious head injuries on 26 August 2019.

A post-mortem examination found injuries consistent with horrendous long-term abuse.

Jacob’s eyes were so swollen he could not open them and he ‘looked like a panda’ because he had dark bruises under them, the Old Bailey has heard.

Jake Drummond, 33, and Louise Lennon, 32, both face charges arising from Jacob’s death.

Drummond denies murdering Jacob and a further charge of wounding the baby with intent in relation to earlier injuries, which include one caused to the genitals with a sharp object.

Lennon denies causing or allowing the death of a child and cruelty to a child.

In his first police interview Drummond claimed he awoke that night to ‘a bang and a little squeal’.

He detailed how he had ‘jumped out of his skin’ when he found Jacob lying face down on the floor of his bedroom.

‘It was my parent’s instinct, when you hear a bang and you know there is a kid next door, you run to check on him.

‘It was a scary whingey [sound], like a whingey squeal, It’s the type that would scare you like you’d [wake up and] think ‘oh that doesn’t sound right’.

‘That’s when I started seeing his lips turn blue and that’s when I put my hands down his throat to make sure he wasn’t swallowing his tongue.

‘His nose had loads of sick come out of it, I just turned him onto his side.

‘I put my hand in his mouth to make sure his airway was clear…I was heaving from the sick, but I had to try my best to save him… I couldn’t just sit there.

Asked at what point an ambulance was called, Drummond told police ‘An ambulance had already been called as soon as I saw his lips turning blue.

‘I said [to Lennon] ‘call an ambulance now, he is having trouble breathing, he aint breathing call an ambulance now.

‘The dispatcher was talking me through CPR, he told me lay him flat on his back, tilt his head back and give 30 compressions on his chest.

‘I think I might have messed up a little but that’s because I was in shock, but I tried my hardest.

Drummond told police the ten minutes he was giving Jacob CPR ‘felt like a lifetime.’

He said: ‘When the ambulance crew turned up, I had my hands down his mouth clearing his airways.

‘Just as I was doing that the ambulance crew walked through the door and I thought ‘brilliant’, Drummond told police officers.

Father-of-two Drummond told officers he then went to comfort Louise.

‘I had to keep myself calm because the last thing the mother needed was someone else in a state, I had to make sure she was ok and that everything was going to be ok.

‘I would never hurt a child… anyone who hurts a child I think they’re disgusting…. I would never hurt a child, like never.’

Drummond, of no fixed address, denies murdering Jacob and a further charge of wounding the baby with intent in relation to earlier injuries, which include one caused to the genitals with a sharp object.

Lennon, of Ingrave Street, Wandsworth, denies causing or allowing the death of a child and cruelty to a child.

The trial continues