A SINGLETON man accused of killing his girlfriend's toddler more than 18 years ago, Cecil Patrick Kennedy, 51, told police the child regularly came back from his father's house "filthy".
Mr Kennedy said that the 21-month-old boy, Jordan Thompson, would also come home from his father's house sleepy, which was not like him.
"They could be getting anything from up there, they're on a lot of pills up there," Mr Kennedy told police during an interview played for the jury.
Kennedy was looking after Jordan the day he died while Jordan's mother, Bernice Swales, went to the shops on March 19, 2005.
When Ms Swales returned an hour later, she saw Kennedy giving CPR to the unresponsive child.
An autopsy did not identify a cause of death, but blood analysis detected high levels of an antidepressant Kennedy had been prescribed in the toddler's system, the court has heard.
Today (Monday, July 31) the jury was shown a walk-through of Mr Kennedy's unit that he conducted with police, including a re-enactment of how he set up the bath tub for the child.
Mr Kennedy said he put the boy in the bath while his mother was out because he had wet himself through to his clothes.
He told police he washed the child with soap, but left the room briefly when another child called out to him.
He said he was only gone for a minute or a minute and a half.
The case against Mr Kennedy is that he was legally responsible for the baby's death because he either committed an unlawful and dangerous act, by giving him anti-depressants which caused his death, or which substantially caused his death by drowning (in the bath); or that he was criminally negligent because he administered a drug to him and left him in the bath unsupervised, knowing that could cause his death; or that he was criminally negligent when he left him in the bath unsupervised knowing that he was under the influence of a drug, or was unwell, causing his death by drowning.
When Ms Swales returned from her trip to the shops she found Mr Kennedy giving Jordan CPR before she rushed him to Singleton Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Mr Kennedy said the child was never himself when he came home from his father's place, that he was 'sleepy' and that that wasn't like Jordan.
"Every time she picked him up he was asleep, and I just couldn't work that out," Mr Kennedy told police during one of three recorded interviews played for the jury.
"Just dirty, and so filthy, the child. I just couldn't believe how dirty he was. I didn't think they cared too much about him. It was just the way he looked when he came back from there
"They're a funny family ... I don't know no more ,... but I do think something's happened up there...
"He was never himself when he come home."
Ms Swales did not know that he was taking anti-depressants, Mr Kennedy said, because he'd stopped taking them the year before, in 2004.
He said he usually kept them in a kitchen cupboard, but did not disagree with police that he might have kept them in his wardrobe in the bedroom sometimes, which is where police told him they'd found them.
"It that's where you found them then they must've been there," Mr Kennedy said.
Asked to describe baby Jordan, Mr Kennedy said he was a kid who danced and loved playing with the dogs.
The trial continues.
