Christina Robinson, 30, allegedly beat her son, three, with a bamboo cane and ‘deliberately immersed him’ in boiling water before he died, a court heard.

The mum admitted to hitting her son Dwelaniyah with a “weapon” because the “Bible tells her that she should chastise her child”, the jury was told.

However, she denied murdering her son, at their home in Bracken Court, Durham, in November 2022, and she also denied a child cruelty charge.

Prosecutor Richard Wright KC told Newcastle Crown Court that the toddler allegedly lost his life after a head injury was inflicted while being shaken by his mother.

The jury was told emergency services found the little boy covered in leg bandages.

He also had tramline bruising on his body, caused by being hit with a bamboo cane, the court heard.

Mr Wright alleged to the jury in his opening: “She deliberately immersed him in boiling water.

“She sought no treatment for his injuries.

“She allowed him to suffer in pain over several weeks and then not once but twice she inflicted head injuries upon him by forcibly shaking him so hard she damaged his brain, and that injury in turn caused his heart to stop.”

He later told the court: “A cane stained with his blood and with his body tissue attached to it was recovered from the family home.

“The defendant admits that Christina hit her son with a weapon but she says that she was allowed to do so because the Bible tells her that she should chastise her child.”

The court heard how the mum had phoned 112 at 4.09 pm and reported her son’s eyes had gone “all weird” and he wasn’t breathing.

She told paramedics he had been eating a cheese bap and suddenly collapsed, insinuating he may have choked.

She also told paramedics the dressings on his legs were from when he burnt himself in the shower by accident weeks before.

The mum claimed the burns hadn’t affected him and weren’t serious enough for hospital treatment, the court heard.

Dwelaniyah was rushed to hospital as his heart stopped but tragically pronounced dead at 5.22 pm.

The court heard how a post-mortem examination revealed the little boy had allegedly been the victim of multiple assaults.

He had also suffered several non-accidental injuries, it was claimed to the jury.

Mr Wright told the court: “In other words, somebody had been deliberately hurting this little boy and had been doing so over some time.

“That person was his mother, the defendant Christina Robinson.”

The prosecutor alleged to the court that Dwelaniyah would have been in “excruciating pain”.

He alleged Robinson didn’t take her son to the hospital because she “knew that questions would immediately be raised” regarding the “terrible injuries”.

The court also heard how the pattern of the burns, which covered about 15 to 20 percent of his body, suggested the tot was “deliberately and forcibly immersed in boiling water”.

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Mr Wright claimed to the jury: “Dwelaniyah died not from eating a cheese bap but because at the point of his terminal collapse, or very shortly before it occurred, he had sustained a major head injury.

“It was not an accidental head injury. It had been quite deliberately inflicted upon him by the application of significant force. There was damage seen in both his brain and in his eyes.

“In combination, these findings suggest a significant head injury in which trauma had been caused by excessive and forceful movement of the head of the type you might see in very forceful shaking.”

The trial, expected to last four weeks, continues.