THE Singleton man accused of killing his girlfriend's toddler said he came back into the bathroom after a minute away to find the child face down in the water.
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Cecil Patrick Kennedy, 51, said he had put Jordan Thompson in the bath because the child had woken up with a wet nappy, and his clothes soaked through with urine.
The child's mother, Bernice Swales, was at the shops getting dinner supplies, so he put the kid in the bath and washed his hair and the rest of his body with soap, Kennedy told police in a recorded interview.
Police later put to him, however, that the clothes the child had been wearing were tested and found to have no traces of urine on them.
Likewise, the bathwater had been tested and shown no traces of soap, while the child's mother, as well as hospital staff where the child was later pronounced dead, said baby Jordan's hair was dry.
"All those tests have got to be wrong 'cause I know I washed him with soap," Kennedy told police.
Kennedy is on trial for manslaughter in the District Court where that interview, and others recorded in 2005, were played today for the jury.
He had been looking after Jordan the day he died more than 18 years ago on March 19, 2005.
When Ms Swales returned about an hour after leaving her son in Kennedy's care, she saw Kennedy giving CPR to the unresponsive child.
An autopsy did not identify a cause of death, but blood analysis detected high levels of an antidepressant Kennedy had been prescribed in the toddler's system, the court has heard.
Kennedy told police during his third interview in November, 2005 that he could not explain how Jordan could have ingested Endep, the same type of anti-depressant which he had been prescribed and the only adult in Jordan's circle known to have a script for it.
He denied being responsible in any way for Jordan's death. He also told police that he did not leave the unit during the time that Ms Swales was out of the unit.
He was later presented with telephone records showing someone spoke to a woman he was known to have slept with from a public telephone box, and evidence from a witness saying he'd seen him that day at the same telephone box, at about the time that phone call was made.
In a fourth interview with police on November 26, 2005, Kennedy was asked about bruises that Jordan had which a pathologist had described as "inconsistent with normal toddler activity".
They included bruises on his scalp, behind his ears, and bumps on his head.
"He was always a good kid," Kennedy said.
But he said he had seen the child's mother whack him over the head at the dinner table once when he was playing up and wouldn't eat his tea properly".
He could not explain how or why drops of Jordan's blood had been found on the bathroom floor or on the sheet on the bed where he'd slept.
The case against Mr Kennedy is that he was legally responsible for the baby's death because he either committed an unlawful and dangerous act, by giving him anti-depressants which caused his death, or which substantially caused his death by drowning (in the bath); or that he was criminally negligent because he administered a drug to him and left him in the bath unsupervised, knowing that could cause his death; or that he was criminally negligent when he left him in the bath unsupervised knowing that he was under the influence of a drug, or was unwell, causing his death by drowning.
The trial continues.
IN THE NEWS:
Gabriel Fowler
Community health & welfare, social justice, investigations, general news. Gabriel.Fowler@newcastleherald.com.au
Community health & welfare, social justice, investigations, general news. Gabriel.Fowler@newcastleherald.com.au
