BRITAIN: A drunk father murdered his terminally ill son in an act of selfishness before toasting the youngster's death, a British court heard yesterday.
Former soldier Andrew Wragg then dialled 999 and confessed to suffocating his 10-year-old son Jacob, claiming it was a "mercy killing". Mr Wragg yesterday admitted manslaughter with diminished responsibility in the first day of his trial at Lewes Crown Court, in Sussex.
But the 37-year-old denies murdering Jacob, who suffered from the severe degenerative disease, Hunter Syndrome, which affects just one in 150,000 male children.
The jury of nine women and three men heard how Mr Wragg sent his wife Mary away from their family home in Henty Close, Worthing, West Sussex, on July 24th last year and then smothered Jacob with a pillow.
When arrested, the court heard, Mr Wragg told police: "Please don't judge me before you know the true facts. It was a mercy killing. My son wanted me to do it as he had a terminal illness." Later at the police station, he added: "He is at peace now. I loved him so much and now I've got to stand up in court and say I put a pillow over his head."
The jury was told that after Jacob was born the couple were alerted to Hunter Syndrome and Ms Wragg had an abortion when it emerged her unborn son, whom they named Henry, was diagnosed with the disease.
Philip Katz QC, prosecuting, said that after Mr Wragg murdered his son he "toasted Jacob and said, in reference to the unborn child, 'he's with Henry now'." The barrister said Mr Wragg was over 3½ times the legal limit for driving at the time of the killing.
He rejected Mr Wragg's claims that he had been suffering with a mental illness at the time.
Mr Katz said even if Jacob's death had been a mercy killing, it was no defence for murder.
Dr James Wraith, a consultant paediatrician at the Royal Manchester Hospital, who treated Jacob seven times up to 2001, described the symptoms of Hunter Syndrome in court.
He said severe sufferers such as Jacob would become deaf, dumb, possibly blind and unable to breathe, with double incontinence. Their joints become stiff until they are unable to walk, talk or even swallow. Death usually followed a severe infection.
The case continues. - (PA)