Blackpool dad accused of murdering toddler son at Central Drive home explains Google and YouTube searches
A father accused of murdering his two-year-old son told a jury he was in “panic mode” when he found the child lying lifeless by a coffee table in the lounge of their Blackpool flat.
Entering the witness box for the first time in week three of the trial at Preston Crown Court, tattoo artist Daniel Hardcastle said little Damion Russell had been happily playing with his toys when he heard “a thud.”
He ran from the kitchen and saw the toddler lying on the floor next to a white coffee table.
“He was face down,” he said. “When I turned him over he wasn’t conscious. I just thought he had knocked himself out.
“I just assumed with him being so close to the table that he had collided with the table.”
The court has been told Damion was rushed to Blackpool Victoria Hospital and later transferred on life support to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital with a bleed on the brain.
His injuries were classed as unsurvivable and he died two days later after treatment was withdrawn.
A Home Office pathologist said death had been due to blunt force trauma. The most likely cause was “forceful shaking in combination with a head impact.”
Dr Jonathon Medcalf added: “The overall injury pattern is deeply suspicious for sustained violent assault.”
Facing the jury from the witness box Hardcastle, who denies murder, spoke in hushed tone as he recounted the tragic day little Damion was injured.
The incident in the flat the two shared in Central Drive, Blackpool, followed a number of other instances where the toddler had suffered bruising.
The court heard that when Hardcastle’s mobile phone had been examined it showed several Google searches for how to treat bruises in children and how long they last.
The boy’s father had only just been given full parental responsibility for him through the courts a few weeks before his death. Damion had missed nursery on numerous occasions in the weeks leading up to the incident.
Hardcastle said in court that the toddler had walking or balance difficulties and regularly fell over, sometimes a dozen times or more a day.
“He was just finding his feet,” he said. “I was told he was just under-developed.”
Asked what he would do when his son fell, Hardcastle said: “I would get him back up and he would fall again.”
He told the jury that the number of bruises his child suffered concerned him. “I was self-conscious about the bruises, embarrassed by them. No-one wants to see their kid with bruises.”
Pushed if he was concerned other people would think he had caused them to Damion, Hardcastle answered: “Yes.”
Asked if he had caused them, he replied: “No.” “I was scared that was the assumption people would come to. I was afraid.”
Several times over the weeks leading up to the boy’s death Hardcastle admitted searching on the internet for information about infant bruising, how long it took to clear up and if there was any cream he could buy to help.
He was asked: “What caused you to Google bruises?” He replied: “Because he was getting more and more frequent bruises in uncommon places, so I had heard you could get cream. I was just doing research, I never intended in actually purchasing any.”
He was asked again: “Do you know how they were caused?” He answered: “I have no idea.” “Did you cause them?” “No.” “Did you do anything to have caused them?” “No.”
The court was told Damion had suffered an episode on June 29 last year when he had “fallen on a step” at a friend’s tattoo shop and passed out. It was a hot day and the boy had been running around, said Hardcastle.
“He must have fallen backwards, I didn’t see it, I just heard it,” he explained. Hardcastle screamed for help and two women passers-by came to his assistance, one of them a nurse.
The nurse said she thought the youngster had suffered a febrile convulsion, stripped him off to cool him down and put him in the recovery position. “I was just panicking,” said Hardcastle.
Damion came to after about 25 minutes and was taken to hospital by ambulance. He was released later that day.
Despite the bruising episodes Hardcastle admitted he had not sought any help from his GP practice.
The night before Damion’s fatal incident Hardcastle admitted he spent virtually all night on a “flirtatious” call to a young woman before going to bed at 5:30am. He got up at 8am to make Damion’s breakfast.
He told the jury he had been in the kitchen of the flat doing chores, while the boy was in his pyjamas playing in the lounge with his toys.
“All of a sudden . . . I heard him fall. I saw him lying on the floor.” Hardcastle said he turned the boy over and thought he had had another convulsion. But he soon realised Damion was hardly breathing.
The toddler was bleeding “fairly badly” from the mouth area. He attempted to revive him but didn’t know how to perform CPR on a child, so tried to look it up on YouTube.
He called 999 because “I realised that what I was doing wasn’t working. His breathing seemed to go from shallow to no breathing at all.”
He admitted carrying him into his bedroom and, when asked why, he said: “I was in panic mode. I was running around. I didn’t know what I was doing at the time.”
Paramedics who attended the scene called police and while they worked on Damion, Hardcastle tried to clean up and tidy the lounge. Officers told him not to move anything.
“I wasn’t sure what I was clearing up, it was just the natural reaction you would do when someone comes round to the house, you clean up and try to make the place look presentable.”
The trial continues.