An Addiscombe childminder accused of shaking a baby boy to death squeezed him with enough force to break two of his ribs, a jury heard.
Linda Bayfield, 54, claims she shook baby Joshua Osborne "twice, quite firmly but not violently" when he appeared to stop breathing.
But an expert on child X-rays said that as well as having been shaken, Joshua was squashed so hard his chest wascompressed by more than a third of his height.
The child died seven days after the incident at Bayfield's home in Sissinghurst Road, Croydon in July last year.
Dr Hall said that the fractures occurred seven days before Joshua's death consistent with the time of the shaking episode.
Bayfield denies murder and an alternative charge of man-slaughter on July 10 last year.
December 6, 2001 11:00
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