Moment mum cries crocodile tears as she is arrested for murdering her baby
A mum arrested after she let she let her neglected son die clamed ‘she didn’t do anything’ when faced with police.
Jacob Crouch was found dead at his Derbyshire home on the morning of December 30 2020.
Stepfather Craig Crouch, 39, was convicted of murder and three counts of child cruelty at Derby Crown Court.
Jacob’s mother Gemma Barton, 33, was cleared of murder, an alternative charge of manslaughter, and two counts of child cruelty, but was found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a child and a third count of child cruelty.
In video released of the moments of her arrest on suspicion of murder, she can be seen bursting into tears as police approach.
She cries: ‘I didn’t do anything, I’ve not done anything’ as an officers informs her she is being arrested on suspicion of murder.
Barton also begs police ‘please don’t’ as they place handcuffs on her.
Crouch is arrested in the same video, but tells officers ‘you won’t need them [the handcuffs], I’ll come with you.’
Jacob died at his home in Foxley Chase, Linton, near Swadlincote, following a ‘vicious assault’ which was the culmination of regular abuse within a ‘culture of cruelty’.
Opening the case in June, prosecutor Mary Prior KC had said: ‘Neither [Crouch of Barton] sought medical help for Jacob at any stage for the pain and suffering caused when his bones were broken or in the few days that followed.
‘Neither got Jacob out of what must have been a life with episodes of significant pain and suffering.
‘Jacob was not given the care that as a baby he needed and deserved.’
Dr Sarah Dixon, a consultant paediatrician, told the court Jacob suffered ‘repeated physical abuse’ in the weeks, days and hours prior to his death and that it was ‘not remotely’ possible that the injuries could have been self-inflicted.
They included a traumatic bowel perforation which led to a fatal infection, which forensic pathologist Dr Michael Biggs said could only have been sustained through blunt force trauma such as a punch, kick or stamp.
He also said that he would expect to see such injuries in car crash victims or those who had suffered a multi-storey fall.
Giving evidence, Crouch, a forklift driver at JCB, said that Jacob’s injuries had ‘nothing to do with me’, stating that he ‘didn’t see anything.’
Barton, 33, also denied ever harming her son, and when asked who could have inflicted the injuries said: ‘It was not me so that leaves Craig.’
Both defendants remained silent as the verdicts were read out, with people in the public gallery weeping.
In text messages from June 2020, Crouch told Barton that she needed to be ‘more regimental’ with Jacob to ‘not let this take over us’, claiming he was ‘starting to get really pissed off with him’ in a later text.
Other messages revealed that the pair at one stage referred to Jacob as the ‘devil’.
In September, when Barton told Crouch she was bathing Jacob, he replied ‘3 foot deep, just hot water and some bleach xxxx’, a comment he later labelled in a police interview as ‘banter’.
After the pair were arrested on January 5 2021, they resumed their relationship despite their bail conditions saying they should not contact each other.
Barton, of Ray Street, Heanor, Derbyshire, and Crouch, of Donisthorpe Lane, Moira, Swadlincote, will be sentenced at the same court on Friday.
Speaking outside Derby Crown Court following the convictions of Crouch and Barton, Detective Inspector Paul Bullock, of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit, said: ‘Jacob Crouch was born into a culture of cruelty where both of the people he should have been able to trust above any other allowed him to be subjected to assault after assault.
‘Heartbreakingly, for much of Jacob’s short life, he would have been in significant pain as a result of the serious and repeated assaults.
‘It is clear from the evidence found on Gemma Barton and Craig Crouch’s phones, through text messages, videos and audio recordings, that they were equally responsible for the culture of cruelty that was inflicted on baby Jacob.
‘As a father, I can’t comprehend what happened behind closed doors and my thoughts remain with Jacob’s wider family who have been left devastated by his death.
‘I hope that today’s verdict brings with it a degree of closure for them, and it begins the process of them being able to grieve for Jacob, and remember the happier times with a much-loved child.’
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