A jury panel will reconvene today for the start of the second week of the trial of a Dubbo man accused of murdering a toddler in March of last year.
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Matthew Allen James Dennis, 21, is accused of murdering the 23-month-old toddler in a Brisbane Street unit on March 21, 2008.
In the first week of the trial, Acting Justice Graham Barr and the jury heard evidence from a total of 20 people.
Included among those were medical experts, a forensic scientist, police officers, neighbours and friends of Mr Dennis.
But the most tragic and heartbreaking evidence came from the child’s mother.
Neither she nor the child can be named for legal reasons.
On Wednesday the mother, holding a pair of the child’s tiny socks, gave evidence into the circumstances leading up to the child’s death.
Among her key evidence was that she had seen her child alive two hours before she left for a night out on Thursday, March 20, 2008.
The following morning, it is believed Mr Dennis found the child and at that stage it wasn’t breathing.
Other key evidence was put forward by medical officers, who assessed the child both during resuscitation attempts and after its death.
Two doctors, Robert Slack-Smith and Randall Greenberg, told the court that they had never come across head injuries as severe as the ones suffered by the child.
The trial is expected to go for about three weeks, with Crown Prosecutor Wayne Creasey to continue his case in the early part of the week before defence barrister John Spencer gets his chance to put forward the case for his client.
What the jury has heard . . .
* Ambulance officer David McKittrick told the court the child was “pale and lifeless” when he arrived at the Brisbane Street unit.
* A neighbour at the time, Lisette Watson, said she heard “quite distinct crying” from the units for quite a period of time on the night in question.
* the child matched that on blood stains taken from clothing at the scene.
* Radiologist Dr Robert Slack-Smith said the child suffered a serious skull fracture and extra-cranial swelling, among other injuries.
* Dr Randall Greenberg, who declared the child dead at Dubbo Base Hospital, said it was “very unlikely” the injuries were caused by a fall in a shower.
* The child’s mother said the toddler enjoyed the shower but it wasn’t a practice to put the child in the shower to calm it down in any way. She also conceded that Mr Dennis, who had visited the unit, got along well with the child.