by One of the last people to see an eight-week-old baby later stabbed by his mother has told a court everything seemed normal at the time.
The mother is charged with murdering her eight-week-old son and attempting to murder his sister on 27 July 2021.
The witness is a niece of the children’s father and neither she nor the accused can be named to protect the identity of the surviving child.
The mother accepts she stabbed the children but denies the charges.
The relative told Belfast Crown Court she called to the accused’s home on 27 July at about 12:45 BST.
The baby was sleeping while his sister was excited to see her and was happily playing.
She said the accused seemed “fed up and frustrated” trying to sort out paperwork to take the children out of the country.
There had been an argument between the accused and her then partner three days before.
She had called the police, saying he had pushed her at the top of the stairs and she had hit her head.
He was removed from the home and ordered to have no contact for four weeks.
‘Nothing caused concern’
On the day of the stabbings, the partner’s niece said the accused had taken a phone call and was crying.
Asked if she was concerned for the accused, the partner’s niece said: “No.”
“It didn’t seem like there was anything wrong, the baby was so content when I was there,” she said.
“Nothing would have given me any concern that she would have harmed her kids.”
She left the house in the late afternoon. Several hours later, she missed several phone calls from the accused.
Shortly after, the mother stabbed the eight-week-old baby, fatally injuring him, and injuring his sister.
Earlier, prosecuting counsel read the statement from the children’s father, who is 52, to the court, as he was deemed too unwell to attend court as a witness.
He said on the evening of the stabbings, he was in England and had missed a call from his then partner as he was sleeping.
He returned her call and she told him she had killed the baby, that the baby’s sister was slowly bleeding, and that she was going to kill herself. He then phoned the police.
The father’s criminal record was set out to the court – it consisted of 54 previous offences which included a sentence for rape in 1987, assaulting a female American tourist in 2013 and a history of domestic violence.
The facts also set out a history of alcohol and drug use as well as aggressive and violent behaviour.
His phone also contained 400 pages of text files and searches related to escorts and prostitutes over a period from April to July 2021.
Other messages show his involvement with drugs, while it emerged that police “hold information” that he “delivered cocaine” to Benidorm in Spain and Walsall in England, and that he was “believed to have access to a firearm which may be kept at his home address”.
The trial continues.
