Baby Preston Davey had sexual abuse injuries, murder trial told

She said there was also evidence of emotional abuse.

She referred the jury to a video they have seen of Preston being “jump scared” when Varley shouts “Boo!” to him as he falls asleep and other videos of him alone in a bath for 14 minutes.

Other videos show him being spun on a park playground, his eyes rolling back in his head.

“They are hard videos to watch,” she said. “They are a child having unpleasant experiences.”

Gifford said the child’s response, staring blankly, not laughing or enjoying the activity, would be consistent with a sign of trauma called “frozen watchfulness”.

At post-mortem, Gifford said she had identified from photographs 26 sites of injuries with 30 individual bruises, both external on the skin and below the surface, internally.

These included nine bruises to the front of Preston’s head and five to the back.

This was well in excess of the number a baby of this age would have and not consistent with accidents or normal domestic behaviour, she added.

Varley denies murder, manslaughter, two counts of assault by penetration, five counts of cruelty to a child, grievous bodily harm, sexual assault of a child, 13 counts of taking indecent photos or videos of a child, one of distributing an indecent photo of a child, to his co-accused, and one of making an indecent photo.

McGowan-Fazakerley denies allowing the death of a child, three counts of child cruelty and one count of the sexual assault of a child.

The trial was adjourned until Monday.