Father cleared of shaking his baby to death

A father accused of shaking his two-month-old son to death walked free from the Old Bailey today.

Judge Anthony Morris said he was "extremely troubled" by the case as he discharged the jury and returned a formal not guilty verdict in favour of Matthew Addy, 30. The prosecution had offered no further evidence.

Last week Scott Addy's mother gave evidence about his death in December 2003. Nicole Pullen told the jury she could not remember a large amount of detail of the events eight years ago.

Ms Pullen and Mr Addy were arrested in the original investigation but not charged. The case was reopened in 2009 and Addy, a greenkeeper at the Walton Heath golf club, Surrey, was charged with manslaughter.

He was said to have been depressed about money problems and worried he could not provide for the baby.

The parents were alone with Scott on the night he died in their flat in Sutton, although Ms Pullen had been violently sick. Scott was taken to hospital with brain injuries and died nine days later.

The judge today made clear his view that Scott had been "unlawfully killed". He was found to have suffered rib injuries some weeks before his death.

Ms Pullen, who now uses the name Nicole Fox, wept as she described her baby as "very happy" and denied that she had done anything to him. But when David Etherington QC, defending, asked whether she had "any mental picture of what was going on that evening at all", she replied: "No."
Addy, of Sutton, had pleaded not guilty to manslaughter.