A FATHER accused of murdering his 15-week-old baby boy broke down and cried when a video of his son was played to a jury.

Matthew Jones sobbed as footage of Cody Rhys Williams-Jones at bathtime was shown during his trial at Newport Crown Court.

The 26-year-old former Ebbw Vale and Newbridge rugby player is accused of the murder and manslaughter of his son in early December 2016.

The electrical engineer allegedly killed Cody by shaking him so hard his eyes bled.

Prosecutor Paul Lewis QC told the jury how the infant suffered catastrophic head injuries in a violent assault.

Taking the stand as the defence case began, Jones, who wore a blue suit, white shirt and tie, told his barrister Richard Smith QC he was a doting father.

The defendant, formerly of South Bank, Beaufort, Ebbw Vale, was asked how he felt when Cody was born.

Jones replied: “I was very proud. I was also proud of Paula (the child’s mother) for bringing such a beautiful son into the world. I was a happy man. I was excited to have a son in my life.”

Mr Smith asked him: “Did you love him?”

Jones answered: “Of course I did.”

He told of how he had taken 400 pictures of Cody during his short life and some of these were shown to the jury.

When the defence played footage of the baby’s bathtime to the court, Jones wept.

After composing himself, he said he was working long hours in his job at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, near Llantrisant, in the days before Cody’s death.

Jones had worked six night and two afternoon shifts “on the bounce in a row”.

The court heard how both the defendant and the child’s mother Paula Williams had been tired at that time with the challenges of raising the baby.

The jury were told there were times when Cody was difficult to settle to go to sleep.

Jones had sent his partner a text in which he asked: “I love him loads but don’t you just want to chuck him out of the window in frustration?”

When asked by Mr Smith if he really would have thrown his son out of a window, Jones replied: “Definitely not.”

The court has been told that just after 6pm on December 7, 2016, Miss Williams received a telephone call from the defendant.

He said that Cody would not stop crying and the mother told Jones to stay calm and to use the baby’s teething gel to soothe him.

A few minutes later, the father called again and was screaming, saying: “It’s the baby; I don’t know what is wrong.”

Jones told the court Cody fell from his arms on to a mattress at the bottom of a bed and landed on the top of his neck and bounced about two feet into the air before flipping over and going “all floppy”.

The defendant added: “When I picked him up, he sank in my arms and made a choking noise. He wasn’t breathing properly.

“I was panicking. Cody had never been like that before.”

Proceeding.