A father has admitted throwing his four-month-old son to the floor in a fit of rage, in an incident prosecutors allege caused injuries linked to the boy’s death 14 years later.
Lejaune Wood, 43, from Wuppertal, Germany, told the court he was “losing his mind” but never meant to seriously harm LJ at the family home in Hayes, west London.
He also accepted that he suggested waiting two days before his wife, Paquita, took LJ to hospital on December 12, 2007. The baby had a broken arm and ribs, a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain.
LJ died aged 14 on December 6, 2021, allegedly as a result of complications connected to the earlier injuries. Wood was subsequently charged with his murder.
Giving evidence at his trial at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, Wood described the moment he “yanked” the baby from his mother’s arms.
He told jurors: “I was losing my mind and I guess I was frustrated with everything going on. I was angry also with myself.
“At that time I was hardly sleeping. I was working a lot. I was literally trying my best to put food on the table – and at that I was failing.
“That morning I just wanted my wife to be there for me. I was literally breaking down inside of me.”
LJ Wood was allegedly yanked from his mother’s arms and thrown to the floor as a four-month-old baby. He died 14 years later at Hillingdon Hospital, while his father, Lejaune, is accused of his murder
Wood was born in Barbados but moved to Germany at the age of three after being adopted, later becoming a German citizen.
He arrived in the UK in 2005 and met Paquita at the hotel where they both worked, the court heard.
Wood said he felt “anxious and happy” when Paquita became pregnant, despite the pregnancy not having been planned.
LJ was born eight weeks prematurely, placing Wood under “quite a lot of strain”. He also said he was “scared” of losing his wife after she was admitted to hospital with a postnatal infection.
He told jurors: “About that time, our life was really stressed. It was very strained. It was kind of like living one day to the next.
“Financially we were living day-to-day. I got a promotion but that was still not enough to live on. I had to work every hour of the day. I was tired and I was stressed.”
The court heard that the couple had argued over how to raise their child, with differences between Wood’s Caribbean and German background and Paquita’s African heritage contributing to tensions.
On the morning of December 12, Wood woke and called to Paquita in the kitchen, asking her to return to bed because he felt “lonely”, jurors heard.
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Wood said: “She said she had to care for LJ and give him his milk. I explained she was spending too much time with LJ and not enough time with me.
“I remember me getting agitated and angry. I said, ‘I work every single hour, the least you can do is spend some time with me’. I threw it in my wife’s face.
“I got really angry and I got really agitated and then I grabbed LJ out of her hands while she was turning away so I couldn’t take him. I was so furious at that point.”
‘I grabbed LJ by his arms while she was turning away, pulling towards me. I was holding very tight.
‘The way I yanked him out of her hands, he was not supported in any kind of way.’
The defendant said he felt ‘frustration and anger’ and LJ’s head had ‘flopped’.
Paquita tried to intervene but Wood said he pushed her face hard, causing her to fall to the floor.
He said: ‘At this stage, I just had enough and I flung LJ to the floor. It was quite a bit of force. At that point I was all over the place.’
On seeing LJ crying, Wood said he ‘came to my senses’, picked him up and ran into the bathroom to put water on him to ‘settle’ him.
Afterwards, Paquita suggested they take LJ to hospital to get checked out but Wood said he wanted to wait a couple of days to ‘see how he is’.
He said he did not initially notice any injury but his wife later pointed out LJ’s arm was ‘floppy’ and he had a lump on his head.
By December 14, Wood said he and his wife were ‘very worried’ and they decided she would take him to Hillingdon Hospital because he had to go to work.
Wood accepted he had caused LJ’s injuries and that what he had done was ‘unlawful’.
But he told jurors he had no intention to cause LJ serious harm during the incident that lasted a couple of minutes.
Asked what he had been thinking when he grabbed LJ from his wife, Wood said: ‘I wanted to take him from her so maybe she would pay attention to me rather than LJ.’
On why he then threw him to the floor, he said: ‘At that time I just had enough. It was more like I was saying, “Here, have your child”.’
Wood denies murder and the trial continues.