Chelsea Cuthbertson denies killing her six-week-old son at Winchester Crown Court trial

"NO" – that was the short answer given by a Hythe woman when her barrister asked if she had ever deliberately hurt her six-week-old baby whom she is accused of murdering.

Chelsea Cuthbertson (28), also firmly denied she hurt tiny Malakai Watts or shook him in the hours before he became unresponsive.

She appeared in the witness box yesterday afternoon (Monday) at Winchester Crown Court as her trial entered its fourth week. Her answers were to questions from her barrister Joanna Martin QC.

The jury also heard Cuthbertson admit she had hurt another child in the past, used cannabis and snorted cocaine.

Detailing her background, Cuthbertson said she lived in London until she was 14 and moved to the Southampton area and studied animal care at Sparsholt College.

She later worked at the Fountain Court Hotel in Hythe and at a chip shop, and met Malakai’s father, Del Watts, the pair having what the court heard was an instant connection.

As reported in the A&T, Cuthbertson is on trial accused of killing tiny Malakai in February 2019.

She denies the single count of murder, and the jury has been told by the judge they will have the option of considering an alternative manslaughter verdict when they retire.

When the trial opened, prosecutor Sally Howes QC outlined how the defendant had called paramedics to her two-bedroom Knightwood Road flat in Hythe on the 2nd because Malakai had collapsed and was unresponsive.

Cuthbertson, she said, told paramedics and police she had gone outside to have a cigarette for "five minutes", and when she returned she found the infant had stopped breathing.

The medics managed to restart Malakai’s heart but it was weak, and after he was rushed to Southampton General Hospital and treated in its Paediatric Intensive Care Unit in what was effectively an induced coma, medics struggled to control seizures he was having.

A CT scan indicated bleeds on his brain and damage to his brain stem, and medics decided by 6th February he should be given palliative care and his life support switched off. He died at 1.48pm.

Subsequent investigations found Malakai’s cause of death to be "non-accidental" and pathological findings assessed "very traumatic head injuries", Mrs Howes said, adding: "Likely they were inflicted by some form of shaking, possibly with some form of impact."

The trial continues.