Death case baby was healthy, doctor tells jury

Just days before Trupti Patel's third baby died, doctors assessed the infant girl to be perfectly healthy, a court was told yesterday.

The 35-year-old mother is accused of crushing or smothering three of her children to death within months, even weeks of their birth.

The deaths of Mrs Patel's two sons, Amar and Jamie, within 18 months of each other were initially attributed to cot deaths. But two years later, when her daughter, Mia, only survived 22 days, the police were called in.

Reading Crown Court heard yesterday from a doctor who examined Mia 10 days earlier because of the two other babies' apparent cot deaths. Anne Thomson, a consultant paediatrician at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, said tests on her breathing and heart rate discovered no problems. "When we looked at the monitoring it was clear that for her age all the recordings we made were entirely within the normal limits for a baby of that age," she said.

A sleep study involved putting a probe on a finger to check Mia's pulse, bands around her chest and stomach to monitor her breathing movements and a probe on the foot to check general body movements. Further checks on her heart during the 16-hour, overnight tests showed it was "structurally normal", Ms Thomson added.

Mrs Patel, of Maidenhead, Berkshire, denies murdering two sons and a daughter over a four-year period from 1997 to 2001. Her first son, Amar, died aged three months. The second, Jamie, lived for only 15 days.

The court heard another doctor describe the moment Jamie died after being rushed into hospital.

Dr Joscelyn Myles, who was a senior officer at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, said the boy was healthy when he was born, apart from a rash, and was discharged six days later on 27 June 2001. The next time he saw him, Jamie was "a very sick baby" being rushed into the emergency ward late on 5 July.

"It was quite evident that Jamie was very unwell. It was clear that he was very sick but I didn't understand why," Dr Myles told the court. The boy suffered a cardiac arrest at 2.15am on the following day.

The court was told on Thursday that Mrs Patel did not seem particularly caring towards Jamie when a nurse visited her shortly after his birth. But yesterday a community nurse, Michael Wolfendale, described how the 35-year-old appeared "confident and capable" despite what had happened to her two sons.

Ms Wolfendale told the court that Mrs Patel had bonded with Mia. She said: "I first visited the family home before Mia was born on 12 February. We discussed the use of an apnoea monitor and keeping a diary to note down any unusual behaviour. After Mia was born I made another home visit on 24 May. Mrs Patel was in the bedroom and the baby was in the crib.

"She discussed with me that she was thinking of holding a party to celebrate the birth. I had a very positive discussion with her and she handled the baby very well – I had no concerns. In my opinion she appeared to be bonding well with the baby. She cuddled her and stroked her face."

The case continues.