"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups:" "The police who investigate crime and the crown prosecutors who prosecute the offenders." "These are their stories." "Leila?" "Leila!" "Leila!" "Do you think Alex can sleep with that racket on?" "Sorry, I wasn't thinking." "Yeah." "Hope you had the monitor with you." "Of course." "He's out for the count." "The monitor is switched off, leila." "Call 999." "Beeping continues Phone 999, leila." "Now!" "Call 999!" "Now!" "Mr Raines, you'll be allowed to carry your son to the ambulance and hold him on the way to the hospital." "You'll both be able to stay with him for as long as you need to." "Thank you." "Where's my baby?" "Where's Alex?" "Where is he?" "Suzy." "No." "No..." "No, don't." "Don't!" "Don't!" "No!" "No!" "Clear signs of encephalopathy, intracranial and intraocular bleeding." "I thought it was cot death." "It's not." "That's why I've called you in." "He has the typical triad of injuries seen in shaken baby syndrome." "So you're saying someone shook him?" "Well, I checked for everything else." "And the time of death was between 7 and 9 P.M.?" "Yes, but the abuse could have occurred any time in the last 12 hours of his life." "So working back from time of death, someone could have shook the baby at, say, 7 o'clock yesterday morning and it would have took him 12 hours to die?" "It's possible." "You ask me, someone picked that baby up and shook it for all it's worth." "this baby monitor is state-of-the-art stuff." "Breathing sensor, camera, recording device." "Was there a video recording of that night?" "There was, but when the monitor switched off, it automatically deletes the last recording unless you press "save."" "Is there a way to retrieve the recording?" "I can't, but I know a man who can if he has the hard drive." "Might take a while, though." "Get onto it straightaway." "Do we know who had access to the baby?" "Suzanne Raines hands the baby over to the nanny and then leaves for work at 7:30." "But that's all it takes... half an hour." "Mum's running late for work, the baby holds her up, she loses her rag..." "Hang on." "Mum's not the only one with access to the baby." "In most cases of sbs, like it or not, the mum is the prime suspect." "That's because most of the time the mum is the main caregiver, but that's not the case here." "Yeah, there was a nanny, right?" "Yeah." "She is live-in, but no formal childcare training." "All right." "Talk to the parents first, but go easy on them, boys." "All new mums and dads worry about cot death, don't they?" "The first few weeks I was up half the night checking he was still breathing." "That's why we got the monitor." "They're supposed to be safe after six months." "When we found out that it was more likely to happen to boys than girls we read up about it." "And we always put him on his back, and we never left him to cry." "We don't think it's cot death." "Is that what all this is about?" "There was bleeding in Alex's brain." "Sorry." "Bleeding, how?" " Someone shook him." " No." "There must be some mistake." "It's work." "I have to take this." "Just let it go to voicemail, Suzy." "I can't." "Yes?" "For God's sake, love." "Well, can't someone else?" "No... okay." "No, fine." "I'll deal with it." "So much for compassionate leave, eh?" "You must be under a lot of pressure." "I mean, demanding boss, little baby..." "Sorry, but what are you getting at?" "It's perfectly understandable." "A lot of new mums don't realize how hard it's gonna be." "No, no, no." "Don't you dare." "You know, my wife spends every lunch break in the toilet expressing milk so she can still breast-feed Alex." "Does that sound like a mum who wants to hurt her kid?" "Mr Raines..." "We have to ask these questions." "Leila told us that she normally takes over around 7:30." "Can you remember what time you handed the baby over to her yesterday morning?" "She got him up after I left for work." "I had to be in the office at six to take an international caller." "I'm selling some flats for an overseas client." "I didn't even open the door." "And what about you, sir?" "Did you see Alex before you went work?" "No." "No, I was away in Manchester on business overnight." "I got back, um, I don't know, a minute, two minutes before I found him." "Right." "Other than yourselves and the nanny, does anyone else have access to the house?" "My husband's ex-wife has a key." "Andrea and I share an online jewelry busine." "The office is here in the house." "And was she here yesterday?" " I was in luton looking at samples." " All day?" "It was a big order." "The supplier wanted to take me out for lunch." "We're old friends." "I can give you his contact details." "Then I got back early evening, and it was just me, emmerdale, and a bottle of wine." "Could anyone have got hold of your keys?" "No, I had them with me." "Does Suzanne Raines mind you working with Michael?" "We're all grown-ups." "Look, it's that nanny of theirs you should be talking to." "You do know about the time she overdosed the baby?" "A couple of months ago leila turned up at accident emergencywithbabyAlex because he overdosed on calpol." "And how does a four-month-old baby get the top off a bottle of calpol?" "Leila had given him the maximum dosage meant for babies over one year old." "She repeated the dosage one hour later." "She obviously realized what she'd done, panicked after reading the bottle." "And the parents never mentioned this?" "Well, Alex was absolutely fine." "One mistake, all right, but two months later the baby ends up dead?" "See what our nanny has to say." "I didn't read the bottle properly." "You gave him a second dose less than an hour later?" "I was tired." "I forgot I'd even given him the first lot." "Soon as I realized what I'd done," "I took up up to the hospital." "And it says hereyou got hime at around 10 A.M., yeah?" "He was teething." "Suzanne was away at some work thing." "I'd been up with him half the night." "So you were stressed out." "Too right I was." "Suzanne only used homeopathic stuff on him when he was unwell." "Said she was worried about e e numbers in kids medicine." "Well, that's a parent's choice." "She wasn't the one stuck in the house all day with a screaming baby." "So you went against her wishes." "She was into all that hippie shit." "You can't do attachment parenting if you work 12 hours a day." "I gave Alex the calpol so I could get some sleep." "Well, maybe you wanted some sleep the night Alex died." "No." "You'd been up with the child since six, you must have been exhausted." "I didn't hurt him." "Well, leila, you were the only one who had access to baby Alex the day he died." "And you were the one who switched the baby monitor off." "I didn't." "It must have been faulty." "Mr Raines said your door was closed" " and music was blaring." " Alex was asleep." "How would you know if the monitor had been turned off?" "His room was below mine." "I would have heard him." "Over the music?" "He cried loud." "Dead babies don't cry." "I didn't know he was dead, did I?" "He was always kicking off lately." "If he wasn't, he was asleep." "And what do you usually do if he was to, as you say, kick off?" "Check the monitor, wait a bit, then go and settle him." "How long is a "bit"?" "I dunno." "Depends how tired I am." "Five minutes?" "Ten?" "What's the big deal?" "Everyone does controlled crying." "Well, mrs Raines specifically told us that she disapproved of it." "When my girls couldn't settle," "I just used to walk 'em up and down the hall half the night." "Leaving a baby to cry it out isn't abusive, Ron." "When you've had a kid, you come back and tell me that." "Babies need to learn the difference between night and day." "Comes a time when you say they're fed, they're dry, it's time they went to sleep." "Controlled crying teaches babies to sleep by themselves." "It teaches babies that mum and dad ain't coming no matter how loud they cry." "It's the only way babies can communicate." "Exactly." "Could be saying, "I want to play peep-o" at 3 A.M." "Or they could be saying, "I'm in pain."" "I wouldn't leave you crying in another room and not go to you, would I?" "If you ever see me crying, please make sure you do." "Ohh." "When you've finished debating parenting techniques, perhaps you'd talk to the last people who employed leila and see if their kid had any visits to casualty." "My boss kept finding me crying all over the customers." "Being away from you was torture." "You didn't trust leila to look after Mia?" "Well, you hear all these horror stories, nannies who shove the kid in front of the telly and spend all day on the phone to their mates." "So was leila like that?" "You don't know what goes on when you're out at work." "And was something going on?" "She used to spend the whole evening on her laptop." "I started worrying she was on it all day, too." "So I borrowed one of those nanny cams from a friend." "And did you see leila hurt Mia?" "No, I could hear Mia shut in her bedroom, crying her little heart out." "Leila was on my sofa..." "Having sex with her boyfriend." "I managed to access leila's email and social networking accounts." "She met her boyfriend Lloyd on a social networking site for squaddies and their families." "He's stationed out in Afghanistan." "Well, if he's out there, how many times did they actually meet?" "Only a handful, but this is the longest they've been apart." "So it was serious." "Well, you tell me." ""Can't wait to rip your clothes off" ""and show how much I missed you." ""Had this really dirty dream about you last night." ""I had you tied to my bed." ""I was in control," ""and you were begging me to touch you, yes, ang, we get the point." "And to make you"..." "Thank you." "The emails are nothing." "I checked the media files and found..." "This." "Well, maybe they wanted something to remember each other by when they're apart." "A passport photo in your wallet used to do the trick when I was a teenager." "Can you tell when this made?" "Down to the second." "It was made the night the baby died." "Recording started at 8:21 and then finished at quarter to 9:00 when leila heard Michael Raines come home." "So these two were making porn movies while the baby lies dead in his cot." "Any mention of the baby in the emails the day he died?" "One." "This was sent two hours before they turned the webcam on." ""Michael's train delayed." ""Bitch at work as usual, so no night off." ""They aren't gonna ruin this for us." "You come here," "I'll make sure the baby doesn't get in the way."" "I didn't think it was important." "He was in the house when Alex died." "Lloyd wouldn't have hurt Alex." "He wouldn't hurt anyone." "What time did he come round?" "Not till after I put Alex to bed." "Now, you said Alex had cried a couple of times." "Was that before or after Lloyd arrived at the house?" "Leila, we need to know the truth, please." "Just after Lloyd got round, I went upstairs, rocked Alex back to sleep." "I got to the bottom of the stairs, and he woke up again." "And you got angry." "At Michael and Suzanne, yeah, not at Alex." "But Alex was the one ruining the reunion with the boyfriend." "I didn't hurt him." "I wouldn't have." "So who did?" "I dunno." "I swear." "Did Lloyd have any contact with the baby?" "Leila, we need to know." "He wasn't in there long." "He said he used to get his baby brother to sleep all the time." "No criminal record, he's been in the army since he left school." "Been stationed in Afghanistan for the last five months." "He's one of the peacekeepers." "Only he's not that good at it." "Lloyd Benson's been the subject of a disciplinary." "Put another squaddie in hospital." "Have you seen his family history?" "Yeah, grew up in Camden, mum and dad split up a few years back." "Two older sisters." "There was a baby brother." "Was?" "Yeah, the baby died at three months old." "Postmortem couldn't find cause of death, so it was classed as sudden infant death syndrome." "And guess who was baby-sitting?" "That's him." "Lloyd Benson, I'm arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Alexander Raines." "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence..." "You're joking." "No joke, son." "Dante's death tore my family apart." "I bet." "Did your family blame you?" "He was fourteen years old." "Well, dealing with a crying baby isn't easy for an adult, is it?" "But I mean, you were just a kid." "I never hurt my brother, and I never hurt this kid neither." "Leila said that you went into the baby's room to settle him down." "What time would that have been?" "Dunno." "Eight-ish?" "And why didn't she go in to him?" "She'd been in there five times." "Every time she left the room the baby kicked off again." "So you thought you'd have a go?" "Yeah." "And how did you do that?" "Settle him down, I mean." "I sang him blackbird by the Beatles." "My mum used to sing it to me." "Look, I just wanted to be with my girlfriend." "To get back to making some more home movies?" "It was only for us." "But the baby got in the way, nonetheless." "No... yeah..." "You must be under a lot of pressure, Lloyd." "I mean, what with Afghanistan and all the rest that goes with it." "You have no idea." "I fail to see how private Benson's job is relevant." "Well, the relevance of private Benson's job is the fact thathe attacked a fr of his regiment..." "I was trying to break up a fight, defending my mate." "That is what you're trained to do, though, isn't it?" "Defend others?" "Yes?" "Even kill, if necessary." "Insurgents, not babies." "Here's what I think happened, Lloyd." "I think you went in to that baby's room to help settle him down, and it didn't work." "No." "I told you... and then maybe he cried some more, leila was getting upset with you, it spoiled the moment for the pair of you, and maybe you lost your temper." "Yeah, it spoiled the mood, leila was upset, but the only thing making me lose my temper is you!" "Sit down, son." "Lloyd wouldn't hurt a baby." "You know his baby brother died, though, right?" "What?" "Yeah, he was three months old." "Found dead in his cot." "Lloyd was baby-sitting." "You're lying." "The death certificate said it was sudden infant death syndrome, but it wouldn't be the first time that a cot death turned out to be murder." "No way." "Lloyd's proper close to his family." "It's a bit of a coincidence though, isn't it?" "Two dead babies, and Lloyd is there alone with both of them." "Maybe you don't know him quite as well as you think you do." "Lloyd was alone in that room with Alex." "You said it yourself." "Now, someone got angry that night..." "And someone shook that baby." "And if it wasn't you, then..." "It must have been Lloyd." "We were in my room." "Playing music." "Alex's crying was doing my nut in so I put the parent unit on silent." "The lights flash up and the screen comes on when the baby cries." "The lights were flashing like mad when Lloyd went in there." "Then they just stopped." "Lloyd said he'd settled him." "He said Alex was fast asleep." "I used to know every squeaky floorboard in my girls' room." "Step on the wrong one, and bang goes an hour rocking them to sleep." "But you didn't know Alex's room, Lloyd." "One false move and he's bawling his head off again." "I was on my way out." "I'd only just closed the door." "And it woke him up?" "Must have been the light in the hall when I opened the door." "Right." "Which one of you two went back into the room?" "Was it you or leila?" "Lloyd..." "Lloyd, the baby monitor in Alex's bedroom had a camera with a recording device." "And we have people working on that hard drive, retrieving that recording." "So pretty soon we're gonna be able to see when that baby was in and out of that cot." "And we're gonna be able to hear every sound from that room on that night." "You're gonna make me wait for those results?" "Or are you gonna tell me now what I'm gonna see and hear from that recording?" "Lloyd." "Leila went back in." "Started shouting at him, told him to shut up." "She just completely lost it." "I went in after her." "The baby was in the cot screaming." "I told leila I'd sort it." "So did you pick the baby up?" "Did you pick the baby up again?" "No." "I should have." "I knew if he kept crying then leila wouldn't want to..." "What, have sex?" "So what did you do?" "What did you do, Lloyd?" "I turned it off." "I turned the baby monitor off." "They're gonna stick to their stories." "We're not gonna get a confession out of either of them." "It could be either one of 'em." "We got the medical evidence and the laptop." "We're just waiting on the recording from the baby monitor now." "He puts her in the baby's room, she puts him in there too." "It's enough." "So which one of them do you want us to charge?" "We charge both of them with murder on a joint enterprise." "Private Benson has no previous convictions and an exemplary military record." "My lord, he was recently stripped of the rank of Lance corporal, having been found guilty of attacking a fellow soldier." "There is also the issue of his baby brother's death." "His brother died of sudden infant death syndrome." "There is no evidence whatsoever the death was anything but natural." "I've heard enough." "Ms marsden, I assume you want to make a bail application, too." "Indeed, my lord." "As you know, there is much debate as to whether prison is a suitable environment for women full stop, let alone a vulnerable teenager with no previous convictions." "And nowhere to be bailed to." "She was residing with the victim's parents." "She can reside with her parents." "I'm sorry, ms marsden, your client is charged with the brutal murder of a defenseless baby." "I'm not taking any chances." "Both defendants are remanded in custody." "Oh, come on, Helena, what did you expect?" "Oh, I don't know." "A lile common sense, perhaps." "Judges are understandably cautious about releasing child killers on bail." "My client didn't kill that baby." "The boyfriend, on the other hand, has history, motive, opportunity." "You saw the email she sent him..." ""I'll make sure that baby doesn't get in the way"." "Speaking of which..." "Application to exclude that laptop, the homemade porn, and the exchange of messages you found on it." "The laptop was seized during an illegal search." "Consent was obtained, my lord." "Not from my client." "Michael Raines gagave consen." "It was his property, leila was his tenant." "And also his employee." "He can consent to a search of her work area for items relating to her job, but her bedroom was her rsrsonal space." "Personal space belonging to Michael and Suzanne Raines." "I'm sorry, mr Steel, whether I own my bedroom or rented it," "I wouldn't want the police trawling through my y-fronts without my consent." "The evidence obtained from the laptop is inadmissible" "All the medical evidence proves is someone shook the baby." "The video and the messages between them provided motive." "Well, the jury might not get to see it, but they will be told that those two were having sex while that baby lay dying." "Only one of them actually did it." "Yes, but if both of them knew what was happening, that makes them both guilt but we can't prove that they both knew and the jury will be scared of sending an innocent person to prison." "We're not gonna drop the charges, James." "No, I'm not suggesting we do." "The defence will use the fact one provides reasonable doubt for the other." "So you'd rather just go after one of them." "If we can find out for certain which one of them did it, yeah." "The monitor recorded images and sound the whole time it was on." "You managed to retrieve it all?" "Yep." "A lot of baby Alex crying in his cot, leila coming in and out." "Anything incriminating?" "Come on, you old man, i'm trying to get some action in there" "Okay..." "Lloyd claims he turned the baby monitor off, went into the bedroom, had sex with leila, they were interrupted by Michael Raines coming home," "Lloyd climbs out of the window onto the flat roof and makes his escape." "Right." "So the recording proves he was telling the truth." "Could he have been in the room any other time?" "Well, we know he only got to the house at 7:30." "The recording starts at 6:00." "He goes into the room, spends 20 minutes singing the baby to sleep, then he's barely out the door when the baby starts crying again, and leila comes in." "Just shut up, will you?" "!" "You'respoilingeverything!" " Shut up!" " Leila, don't!" "Just go back in the bedroom." "I'llsortit ." "Poor kid." "Could he have shaken the baby after he turned the monitor off?" "The timecode says the monitor went off at 8:21 and 7 seconds exactly." "19 seconds later Lloyd turns on the webcam and appears in shot in leila's room, and they started their homemade porn session." "Just enough time to go from Alex's room upstairs to leila's and turn on the camera, but not enough time to shake a baby to death." "It can't have been Lloyd." "The evidence we found exonerates your client." "We've issued a notice of discontinuance and the court are drawing up his release papers." "I'll contact his family." "I'm sure they'll want the chance to see him before he flies back out to Afghanistan." "We're expecting a legal visit with Lloyd Benson." "I'm afraid that, uh, won't be possible." "I was assured private Benson would be here." "Lloyd Benson was stabbed by his cellmate half an hour ago." "He died before the ambulance arrived." "This kid has done three tours of Afghanistan...." "And he dies in one of your cells?" "You can't blame yourself for this, James." "Lloyd should never have been in that prison cell." "You weren't the only one who thought he was guilty." "He barely had access to that baby." "It must have been leila." "Lloyd's innocence does prove leila's guilt." "She was angry with that baby." "You heard the recording." "She was the only one with opportunity and motive." "Missing out on your night off is hardly motive for child murder." "She'd been caring for a teething baby since 5:00 that morning." "Come on, you're a parent, you know what it's like." "And most parents don't end up killing their children, James." "See you in court." "You've got my report." "I need you in the witness box, Lucy, your expert testimony could make all the difference." "There must be half a dozen expert witnesses who'd be more than happy to take the check." "Yeah, but they didn't do the postmortem." "Well, these shaken baby cases just aren't clear-cut anymore." "You seemed to be pretty clear about it before." "I'm not disputing the baby was shaken." "It's just I don't want a conviction resting solely on my evidence." "We have witnesses to leila merton's neglect, a recording of her yelling at the baby..." "You know I wouldn't prosecute a case based purely on medical evidence." "And you know expert witnesses don't get immunity anymore." "Because of unsafe convictions based on tenuous evidence." "I am not about to put my career on the line." "Are you 100% certain this baby was shaken?" "Yes." "You know I am." "There's no other explanation." "Then a jury needs to hear that." "Violently shaking a baby can cause the brain to move within the skull, resulting in cerebral contusions or tearing of the blood vessels." "The most common finding in these babies is a triad of injuries, brain disease, and bleeding behind the brain and behind the eyes." "And did you find this bleeding in Alex Raines?" "Yes, and it was severe." "So in your opinion, was baby Alex shaken to death?" "Well, unless he was involved in a car crash," "I can't think of any other likely explanation." "Thank you." "No further questions." "Did you find any bruising on the baby's arms or rib cage?" "No." "Any rib fractures?" "No, but... any traction changes in the long bones, damage to the neck or spine?" "No." "So out of seven expected findings in a case of shaken baby syndrome, you found only three." "I found the three most common." "And is this triad of injuries ever found in any other condition in babies?" "Yes, but I checked." "There was no birth trauma, no vaccine damage, there was no vitamin c deficiency, and he tested negative to ga-1." "Aren't you missing one other condition?" "I don't think so." "Is it not possible that an accidental head injury can also cause the same pattern of swelling and bleeding?" "Is that a difficult question, ms radley?" "It's possible, yes." "Is it not the case that many pediatric experts now doubt the very existence of so-called shaken baby syndrome?" "Some do." "I don't." "I believe a significant number of convictions have been quashed and caregivers released from prison." "It's not my area of expertise, so I can't possibly comment." "No, that's right." "You aren't an expert in head injuries at all, are you?" "I'm an expert in pediatric forensic pathology, and I did the postmortem." "One final question." "When you did the postmortem, did you examine the dura?" "The outermost layer of the meninges which surrounds the brain and spinal cord." "There was no reason to." "Really?" "You found bleeding in the brain and you didn't examine the dura to see if a clot from a previous injury might have left an imprint?" "To the best of my knowledge, there is no history of previous injuries." "To the best of your knowledge." "No further questions." "With Lloyd exonerated," "Helena was bound to have a go at the medical evidence." "She has to create reasonable doubt." "She did a good job of it." "According to Alex Raines' medical records, there was no accidental head injury." "The jury will see she's just trying to muddy the waters." "You had access to the Raines' house?" "Yes, I'm in the office most days." "It's in the house." "So you saw how the defendant interacted with baby Alex when mr and mrs Raines weren't at home?" "She didn't." "She was usually on the sofa checking her email." "And where was the baby?" "Either in his cot upstairs, or in his playpen." "More often than not, he was crying." "A few days before Alex died, he was very distressed." "He'd been sick." "It was all over his clothes." "And the defendant didn't go to him?" "I..." "Called to her, but she didn't hear me." "She had her headphones on." "Presumably she couldn'tear the baby crying." "No." "I went downstairs and told her Alex was unwell, that he needed changing." "Did she go to him then?" "No, she just put her headphones back on and went back to her laptop." "Did you ever witness the defendant being violent toward the child?" "A couple of weeks before Alex died" "I was in the kitchen making a cup of tea, and Alex was in his highchair." "He'd thrown his bowl, and there was food all over the walls and floor." "What did leila do?" "She shouted at him, then she grabbed him out of the chair and shoved him into the playpen." "That girl didn't give a damn about that baby!" "The jury will disregard the witness's last comments." "We thought she genuinely cared for Alex." "We trusteder." "Did you ever observe her being rough with Alex?" "No." "But she told the police that she left him to cry, and she knew how strongly I felt about that." "Must have been very difficult for you toand over such a young child while you went out to work." "Broke my heart." "Every day it broke my heart." "Thank you." "I'm sorry for your loss, mrs Raines." "I appreciate how difficult it must be for you to come here today." "Were you and your husband in some sort of financial difficulty?" "No." "But you returned to work when your baby was just a few weeks old." "Without my wages we had nothing left after the mortgage and the bills were paid." "It was a difficult year." "The market's picking up now." "So you can pay for all the little extras." "Yes." "Holidays, nice car, wine club." "Yes." "Without those luxuries, you could have stayed home and looked after your baby." "I need my job." "More than your child?" "Whether or not mrs Raines chooses to go out and work has no bearing whatsoever on this case." "I'm simply trying to paint a picture for the jury of life in the Raines home." "Let's keep that picture in a simple frame, ms marsden." "We don't need to gild it, now, do we?" "Were you aware when you hired leila merton that she'd recently been fired by another family?" "No." "I had no idea." "We trusted the agency to be open with us." "How much research did you do on this agency that supplies untrained nannies?" "Would you like me to rephrase the question?" "My neighbor's sister uses them." "I see." "And what's her name?" "My neighbor?" "No, her sister." "The court reporter needs to take this down, mrs Raines." "I don't know." "Yet you trusted her judgment when it came to the welfare of your child?" "Is this any of this actually relevant to the case?" "!" "I think not." "Consider yourself warned, ms marsden." "On the day your son died, you left the house at five A.M." "And didn't return until your husband calledou away from work at ten P.M. is that correct?" "I had a late night viewing." "We're selling some apartments on the river." "You were away from the house for some 17 hours." "Does your job often require you to work so late into the evenings?" "Occasionally." "So you were swanning around some luxury penthouse while someone else was changing your baby's dirty nappies." "I loved my baby." "Of course you did, you just didn't have any time to spend with him." "My lord, mrs Raines is not the one on trial here." "Ms marsden, you will be held in contempt if you do not return to an appropriate line of questioning." "The jury will disregard your last comments." "One more question, mrs Raines." "Bumps to the head, in the month before his death?" "He has just started crawling." "Of course he had bumps." "You show me a baby that doesn't." "Any particular incident come to mind?" "He fell off his changer when Michael was reaching for a nappy." "It was three weeks before he died." "The gp said he was fine." "No further questions." "That was quite a performance." "The jury has a right to know what sort of mum she is." "A working one." "You made her look like rose west." "Because I showed she put her job before her own child?" "Because you played on misconceptions held by half the jury." "Come on, Helena, you're a working mum." "You know how tough it can be." "Do you think I'd be doing this if my ex hadn't buggered off with his therapist?" "I think you'd still be up in court on your zimmerframe if they'll let you." "Madam foreperson, please answer my first question either "yes" or "no"." "Have you reached a verdict on which at least ten of you have agreed?" "No." "Would any more time assist?" "I don't think so, no." "I must declare this jury have been unable to reach a verdict." "So what the hell do we do now?" "The crown has seven days to decide whether or not they will be retrying." "The case will be listed for mention a week on Monday." "We have to make sure the next jury are certain of leila merton's guilt." "You don't think a retrial will be a waste of public money?" "She knew that baby wasn't well, but instead of taking care of him, she was more interested in making homemade porn with her boyfriend." "Well, she wasn't trained in childcare." "If the Raines expected her to do those sort of hours, they should have hired a fully trained nanny." "A trained nanny costs the best part of 30 grand a year." "They could never afford that." "Suzanne said she took Alex to the gp after a fall, but there's no mention of it in the medical records." "I thought she was an over-anxious new mum." "You know how many I get in here every day?" "But there's no record of the injury in Alex Raines' notes." "Because there was no injury." "I checked the baby's head..." "No bump, not even a bruise." "Is is possible that Alex could have had an internainjury without any signs of an external one?" "I'm a gp, mr steel, not a specialist." "That's something you'll have to ask the pathologist who did the postmortem." "I told you what I believed according to the evidence I'd been given." "You're the expert, Lucy." "You should have told me the full story." "This accidental injury three weeks before he died..." "The fall from the changer, which I knew absolutely nothing about." "I'm not interested in who's to blame." "I just need to know if it could have caused his death." "There are cases where a baby has an accidental bump to the head, shows no outward signs of damage, and then dies a few weeks later when the bleeding is triggered again." "It's rare, but it does happen." "But something would need to trigger the bleeding." "Well, it wouldn't take much." "If the baby's head hit a surface with a small amount of force, the bleeding could start again." "Are you seriously telling me his death could have been accidental?" "Well, I'd need to reexamine the brain in the skull to be sure." "Exhume the body?" "It's your call, James, not mine." "But to be certain?" "Yeah." "No." "Michael, you shouldn't have come." "I had to see it for myself." "Please, I'm begging you, don't do it." "We have to know." "Lucy called." "There are signs of a healing fracture in Alex's skull." "How recent?" "The healing is consistent with a bump to the head three weeks prior to death." "A re-bleed could have been triggered by another bump." "Andrea said she saw leila being heavy-handed with the baby." "Maybe she bumped his head by accident." "I was never rough with Alex, even when I'd been up half the night." "Andrea claims you were." "She's lying." "I never hurt him." "You didn't drop him accidentally?" "No." "It happens." "You're tired, the baby slips out of your hands?" "No." "You're certain?" "I'd tell you." "I don't want to spend the rest of my life inside, do I?" "Interesting as this is, James, is there a point to it?" "We think Alex's death..." "May have been accidental." "Oh." "In which case I'll be filing for damages for the time my client spent in custody on remand." "I don't want to make money out of this." "Lloyd died with the whole world thinking he was a baby murderer." "He was my life." "We offered her a get-out-of-jail-free card." "All she had to say was she accidentally bumped the baby's head." "But Andrea was certain that she saw leila being rough with Alex." "Yet leila claims she wasn't." "Well, one of them's lying." "The question is, which one?" "Let's talk to Andrea again." "I put that couple through an exhumation." "We have to find out how their baby died." "I'm not saying she meant to hurt Alex;" "she was just so wrapped up in that boyfriend of hers." "When I was nineteen I'd much rather have been writing love letters to Michael than spoon-feeding a baby." "You were with Michael when you were nineteen?" "Eighteen." "We met at university." "Fresher's ball." "You never wanted kids?" "Do I look like the maternal type?" "I wouldn't know one end from the other." "I have a meeting with a supplier in an hour." "Leila merton denies ever being rough with the baby." "I know what I saw." "You're the only person that saw that." "Even Suzanne never witnessed leila be anything but gentle with Alex." "Well, maybe it wasn't leila." "Maybe it was the boyfriend." "Really?" "I don't mean on purpose." "A few days..." "Before Alex died," "I passed his room." "The door was open." "Leila's boyfriend was in there." "And he was playing with the baby, flying him round the room like an aeroplane." "Alex was loving it, giggling." "I didn't think of it at the time, but he was there, wasn't he?" "The night that Alex died." "Maybe he was playing the game." "I mean, he could have hit Alex's head against the wall or something without realising." "Look, I really have to get to this meeting." "We'll let you know about the retrial." "She's lying." "Sounded possible." "She just said she saw Lloyd a few days before Alex died." "Lloyd Benson had been on a tour of duty in Afghanistan for five months." "He only got back the day Alex died." "Leila had only been working there three months." "Lloyd had never been to the Raines' house before." "So if Andrea saw him in Alex's room, it must have been the night Alex died." "Andrea made out that she didn't want a baby, career comes first and all that." "So?" "So, I talked to Michael about it." "Being in the Raines' house the night Alex died wasn't the only thing she lied about." "Andrea and Michael had seven failed attempts at ivf." "It nearly crippled them financially." "It wasn't anyone's business." "You lied about not wanting a baby." "You share your personal failures with all and sundry, do you?" "It must have been soul-destroying, going through all that and still not having a baby at the end of it." "What would you know?" "You want my advice?" "Have a baby before your eggs dry up." "It can't have been easy, watching the man you love have a baby with someone else." "They didn't tell me." "Michael was too scared." "I answered the door when the cot arrived." "That must have hurt." "That's what happens when you're infertile." "People stop telling you their happy news, stop inviting you to their child-friendly parties, because you're not a member of their exclusive little club." "Andrea, leila's boyfriend was in Afghanistan right up until the day of Alex's death." "I must have got the date wrong." "We know for a fact he only came here once." "It w the night Alex died." "You were here at Suzy and Michael's the night Alex died, weren't you?" "I dropped off some files, then left." "That's it." "So you've been lying all this time." "You must have heard Alex crying." "Yes, but I didn't go to him." "Because you're not the maternal type." "But that's not true, is it?" "You wanted a baby more than anything." "I didn't shake that baby!" "I couldn't do that!" "No one shook him, Andrea." "Alex's death was accidental." "But he must have bumped his head the day he died." "On his cot, maybe?" "You went into his room, didn't you?" "They left him with a 19-year-old kid, for God's sake!" "They never saw him!" "You wouldn't have done that, would you?" "If he was yours." "She didn't deserve him!" "She took my husband!" "She took everything!" "You picked Alex up, didn't you?" "I just wanted to stop him crying." "I held him." "I just held him." "An innocent man was accused of killing Alex." "He was murdered in his prison cell." "You have to tell us what happened." "He stopped crying." "He..." "He just wanted a cuddle." "I looked into his eyes, and I saw Michael." "I saw the child I never had." "It should have been my baby!" "It hurt so much to feel him in my arms and know that I'll never..." "I'll never be a mum." "What did you do, Andrea?" "I couldn't stand to hold him anymore." "I just let go." "I just..." "Let go." "Loser buys?" "You must have had your doubts." "Everything said it was her." "When's that stopped me defending to the best of my ability?" "Do fancy another?" "No, thanks." "I should have been back an hour ago for the baby-sitter." "Want to share a cab?" "No, I'm meeting Alesha." "Watch out." "Over 30, childless..." "Tick-tock."