by Keith Hunt

A father has denied losing his temper and causing fatal injuries to his young baby after being up all night smoking cannabis, watching TV and using a computer.

Asked if he threw the four-month-old child onto the sofa at his Maidstone home, Wayne Acott replied: “No, I did nothing to him.”

Maidstone Crown Court has heard Acott’s son Mackenzie was left in his care while his partner Susan York went on the school run with her daughter.

He had fallen asleep on the sofa at 6.30am at their flat in Square Hill Road and was woken up by the baby crying for his feed.

Prosecutor Sally Howes QC has suggested Acott, 22, shook the child or threw him onto a soft surface in what could have been a momentary loss of control.

Mackenzie died seven days later on January 28 last year at London’s King’s College Hospital from brain damage.

Acott, who denies manslaughter, said in evidence he had spent the previous evening at a friend’s flat and was having difficulty sleeping because of toothache and a headache.

“I find it difficult to get to sleep most nights,” he said. “That was the situation that night.”

He had no recollection, he said, of anything before Miss York, 30, left the flat. Asked why, he replied: “Because I don’t recall being woken up at all before Sue left.”

He was a light sleeper, he said, and claimed cannabis did not affect him.

“It is not down to cannabis, it’s down to lack of sleep why I didn’t wake up,” he told the jury. “I was not aware she was trying to wake me. I was not aware she told me I need to feed the baby.

“The second I heard Mackenzie crying I was awake. The bottle was next to me on the floor. I did feed my son.

Acott said he would normally be at work at that time but he had not been for two to three weeks because his father sacked him for not getting up in the morning.

He denied losing his temper and claimed Mackenzie’s collapse was a complete mystery.

“If there is anything at all I can express to help the situation, I would do,” he continued. “I would have done anything to save my baby’s life.”

Miss Howes asked: “You knew what you did that morning in temper had caused something to go very wrong, don’t you?”

Acott replied: “I didn’t do anything that morning to even think about losing my temper.”

Asked by his QC Orlando Pownall what effect cannabis had on him, he said: “It just makes me more relaxed and sort of makes me paranoia (sic) at times.”

Asked if he agreed that cannabis made him more “chilled”, he said: “Yes, 100 per cent.” He was not still under the influence of the drug, he said, when he woke up.

The trial continues.