A baby was murdered by his mother and her boyfriend after initially suffering a catalogue of injuries including fractured ribs and a broken back that had left him paralysed, a court heard.

The 17-month-old boy was subjected to “a course of assaults of increasing violence” over many months at his North London home, despite being on a council’s at-risk register, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.

He was examined many times by doctors, seen by a health visitor and social workers and listed on Haringey’s child protection register for nine months as being at risk of neglect and physical abuse, the jury heard.

Despite this the boy, who along with the two adults cannot be named for legal reasons, received numerous injuries. The jury were shown computer-generated images of the injuries to protect them from having to see photographs of his body.

The baby’s 27-year-old mother, who has other children, her boyfriend, 32, and another man, Jason Owen, 36, all deny murder. The men deny causing or allowing the death of a child, although the mother has admitted allowing the death of a child.

Sally O’Neill, QC, for the prosecution, told the jury of seven men and five women: “Over the last seven or eight months of his short life (the child) was subjected to a course of assaults of increasing violence.

“The Crown’s case against these defendants is that either they themselves inflicted this unlawful force on (the child) or that they participated in a joint enterprise to do so.”

To break his back would require “an extremely forceful hyperextension of the spine by, for example, forcing a child’s back over your bent knee or over a banister rail. The effect would have been paralyses from the level of the injury down,” she said

Miss O’Neill said the injuries happened when all three defendants were living in the same house, although the mother constantly lied to the authorities that her boyfriend lived there.

“Whether they inflicted the injuries themselves or knew one of their co-defendants was doing so, the Crown case is that either way, they were a party to these unlawful assaults.”

By the time the boy was eight months old his mother had taken him to the GP a number of times as he had signs of bruising, Miss O’Neill said.

In December the mother took him back to the doctor for bruising to the head and most of the upper body. The baby was examined by a consultant paediatrician who felt the bruises were “very suggestive” of non-accidental injuries and social workers were alerted.

The baby was admitted to hospital in December 2006 and, on being discharged, was put in the care of a family friend. Later that month the woman and her own mother were arrested for assaulting the child.

A month later the boy was allowed home. Two days before he was killed, he was taken to a child development centre at St Anne’s Hospital, Tottenham, North London, to be assessed.

Miss O’Neill said experts would testify that a number of injuries, including the spinal injury, were inflicted at least 48 hours before his death.

The day before the child’s death his mother and her own mother were told by police no further action would be taken against them, the court heard.

The next day, at 11.35am, a 999 a call was made from the child’s house. Paramedics found him with no sign of life and he was dead on arrival at hospital.

The case continues.

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