THE mother of Singleton toddler Jordan William Thompson has given evidence at her ex-boyfriend's manslaughter trial where she has described rushing his lifeless body into the emergency department.
"I walked in and I said, 'what's happened'," Bernice Swales said upon returning to her then-boyfriend Cecil Patrick Kennedy's unit.
She had been at the shops and left her 21-month-old boy, also known as 'Jordy', with Mr Kennedy.
"He was naked, he wasn't moving, his eyes were fixed, he was just looking straight up," Ms Swales said of her son.
"There was no movement or any noise or expressions at all."
That was nearly two decades ago, on the night of March 19, 2005.
He was cool to the touch, she said, and she was screaming and yelling for help as she carried him into the emergency department of Singleton Hospital.
As staff attempted to resuscitate him, a nurse asked her what had happened.
"I said I don't know, all I got told was he fell out of the bath," Ms Swales said.
The little boy, also known as 'Jordy' was pronounced dead just before 7pm that night.
In outlining the case against Mr Kennedy yesterday (Tuesday, August 13), Crown Prosecutor Kate Nightingale said Ms Swales left the unit at 5pm with other children to get some things for dinner.
When she got back, she ran into the bedroom to find her son lying naked on a bed, and Mr Kennedy attempting to do CPR.
Mr Kennedy, 52, has pleaded not guilty to one count of manslaughter. He is accused of giving the child anti-depressants which either caused, or contributed to his death.
In evidence she gave earlier today, Ms Swales recalled the morning before her son's death.
She had been outside with most of the other children while Jordan, who had been a bit "sooky", was up stairs laying on a lounge.
Mr Kennedy had been in and out of the kitchen, and sometimes sitting with another child who was playing play station in the lounge room.
At one stage she came upstairs and saw Jordan laying still.
"He was just laying there with chunks of vomit in his mouth," Ms Swales said.
She asked Mr Kennedy why he hadn't picked him up and he said it had only just happened, Ms Swales said.
Ms Swales was told some time after her son's death that an autopsy found traces of anti-depressants in Jordan's system, the court heard.
She was also told police had found an anti-depressant, amitripyline, in a wardrobe in Mr Kennedy's unit.
"I asked him why didnt he tell me that he had that medication," Ms Swales said.
"He explained to me that he hadnt even touched that medication for more than six months and definitely not in the time that we were together and that it might not even be his medication that they found in Jordans system."
Ms Swales said Mr Kennedy cast blame on Jordan's father and paternal grandparents.
The trial, before Judge Craig Smith SC in the Sydney District Court, is expected to run for six to eight weeks.
