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Court hears testimony about father who drank bottle of vodka before baby son’s death

The court heard testimony today from the prosecution that a father accused of killing his baby had drank a bottle of vodka prior to the event.

The Winchester Crown Court was told by the prosecution that Craig Tattum, accused of killing his baby son Ethan, “quite clearly got drunk” the night that paramedics were called to his house, and that “somehow he injured baby Ethan.”

The prosecution’s Jane Miller QC told the court that on the night of July 4, 2008, Tattum’s wife Louise placed an emergency call to paramedics, stating their son had stopped breathing. During the phone conversation, emergency personnel could hear that Tattum was in a very distressed state.

Miller stated that when the ambulance crew arrived, the crew was forced to call police to the residence as Tattum smelled of alcohol, acted erratically, and interfered with their rescue efforts. Ethan was then transported to Poole General Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Miller said that hospital personnel also noticed that Tattum was behaving erratically. Later that night Tattum was arrested on charges of manslaughter.

Miller added that Tattum denied the manslaughter charges, claiming that he left his son on the sofa while he went to prepare a baby bottle. Tattum claimed that when he returned, Ethan was bleeding from the nose and soon stopped breathing.

The court heard that baby Ethan had sustained trauma to the head and spine and had bruises on the face.

Ms Miller told the court: “He caused injuries to Ethan’s face either by hitting him or hitting him against something. He also probably shook him. The head injuries were severe and caused Ethan’s death.”

”We do not say Mr. Tattum intended to kill baby Ethan or intended to cause him serious harm, but whatever he did do that evening, it caused him to die.”

”He clearly assaulted him in some way and that assault any sober or reasonable person would realize would cause Ethan to sustain some harm,” she added.

The trial is expected to continue as the prosecution provides more evidence against Tattum.

         

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Trauma Prior To Pregnancy Found To Affect Behaviour Of Offspring

Researchers at the University of Haifa have found that the trauma mother rats experience before getting pregnant will affect the behavior of their offspring.

Prof. Micah Leshem, who lead the study said “The findings show that trauma from a mother’s past, which does not directly impact her pregnancy, will affect her offspring’s emotional and social behavior. We should consider whether such effects occur in humans too,”

Their findings have been published in the journal Developmental Psychology.

Earlier studies have researched trauma during pregnancy, this is the first study to investigate trauma prior to conception.

Rats were used in the investigation as they have found to behave socially in a similar way to humans. Researchers divided the rats into three groups, the first group were submitted to stress two weeks before mating, allowing the mothers some time to recover before they conceived.

The second group was submitted to one week of stress and not given any recovery period before they conceived.

In the final group, the control rats, they were not submitted to any stress.

Once the offspring of the rats had matured and were over 60 days old, their social and emotional behavior, such as amount of anxiety and depression, was evaluated.

The study found that the offspring of females who had experienced trauma before they were conceived displayed different behavior to the offspring of rats from the control group.

Offspring of mothers who had been stressed had less social interaction, with female offspring suffering from higher levels of anxiety. Male offspring of the stressed mothers displayed less anxiety.

Rats from the offspring of the second group where they had been conceived immediately after trauma were found to be hyperactive. This implied that the amount of time between the trauma and conception was important.

Prof. Leshem said “Everyone knows that smoking harms the fetus and therefore a mother must not smoke during pregnancy. The findings of the present study show that adversity from a mother’s past, even well before her pregnancy, does affect her offspring, even when they are adult. We should be prepared for analogous effects in humans: for example, in children born to mothers who may have been exposed to war well before becoming pregnant,”