A FATHER on trial for murdering his baby son by shaking him to death gave a number of different accounts to explain away his injuries, a jury heard.

Matthew Jones is accused of killing 15-week-old Cody Rhys Williams-Jones by causing him catastrophic head injuries in an alleged violent attack at their home in Ebbw Vale.

Prosecutor Paul Lewis QC told Newport Crown Court how the 26-year electrical engineer shook his son so hard his eyes bled.

Jones, formerly of South Bank, Beaufort, has denied murder and manslaughter.

Mr Lewis said the defendant's first account of how Cody sustained his fatal injuries was given during the 999 call he made on December 7, 2016.

Jones had been alone with the infant while the child’s mother Paula Williams, who lived with them in their three-bedroomed family home, was visiting her sister.

The defendant told the emergency operator Cody had fallen on to a bed.

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Mr Lewis said: “Thereafter, he provided a number of different accounts to explain away Cody’s injuries.”

Cody was taken for treatment at Abergavenny’s Nevill Hall Hospital and the court heard from Dr Stephen Towner who was on duty that day.

He was working as a training registrar in emergency medicine at the time and told how he had spoken to the baby’s parents to find out the background of the case.

Dr Towner said there had been some initial “confusion” about how Cody had sustained his injuries and that he was first told, possibly by the paramedics who brought him to hospital, the child had fallen on to a bed.

When he was asked by Mr Lewis to refer to the statement he made to detectives five months later in April 2017, he said it was correct when he had stated to them that he was told by the parents: “That dad had been carrying Cody and he had jolted or jerked and landed on a wooden floor on his back/neck/head.”

Dr Towner admitted under cross-examination by Jones’ barrister Richard Smith QC that he did not make a note who had told him this and could not be certain if it was the defendant or the child's mother.

But under re-examination by Mr Lewis he said: “To my recollection it was the father.”

The jury had heard the prosecutor say earlier in the case that Jones gave Jessica Williams, the mother’s sister, another version prior to the arrival of the paramedics.

Mr Lewis told the court: “Matthew said, ‘The baby kicked off me in temper and hit his back of head on that’.

“Matthew then pointed towards the wooden framed baby changing unit that was in the living room close to the front door, this was approximately six feet from where Cody was laying.”

Jones has claimed he “clumsily” dropped little Cody who he had referred to as a “pleb”.

The infant’s life support machine was turned off the following day on December 8, 2016 at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales, where he was transferred, when the “medical opinion was that there was no prospect of him making any significant degree of recovery from his catastrophic injuries”.

Proceeding.