Police video shows mother accused of murdering her three-year-old son

Police body-worn camera footage has been released from the trial of a mother accused of murdering her three-year-old son.

Christina Robinson, 30, is accused of causing a fatal head injury to her son Dwelaniyah by violently shaking him at the family home in Bracken Court, Ushaw Moor, Durham, in November 2022.

She is also accused of deliberately scalding his legs and buttocks, and hitting him with a bamboo cane in the weeks before.

The married defendant denies murder and a child cruelty charge.

Newcastle Crown Court has heard she claims she was allowed to chastise the little boy according to the teachings of the Bible.

Robinson, originally from Tamworth, Staffordshire, contacted the emergency services on November 5 2022, claiming her son stopped breathing after “his eyes went all weird” while he was eating.

Paramedics and police were quickly on the scene and the jury has been shown body-worn camera footage from Pc Emma Watson, who spoke to Robinson while an ambulance crew worked to save her son in the next room.

Robinson explained to the officer: “We were just downstairs, he was eating his food and then all of a sudden there were just sort of like sputtering sounds, and then he just sort of, like, went limp.

“I didn’t know what was going on, I just thought he was messing around because he doesn’t chew his food very well, so I didn’t really notice straight away.

“Then when I saw that he went a bit limp, I thought ‘OK, let me rush him upstairs and try CPR’.”

Robinson told the officer she then called her husband, who was away working with the RAF, before alerting the emergency services.

Paramedics tried to save him and took Dwelaniyah, whose heart had stopped, to hospital, but he could not be saved.

The jury has heard Robinson was having an affair with a man she met on a dating site and had got pregnant using a separate sperm donor.

The trial continues.