Father squeezed baby son to death

Vincent Jacob denied murder and child cruelty

A father who squeezed his baby son to death has been convicted of manslaughter.

Doctors examining six-week-old Scott Jacob after his death found he had 16 rib fractures - injuries similar to those from a car accident.

His father Vincent Jacob, 33, was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter at the Old Bailey on Thursday.

Both Jacob, from Manor Park, east London, and Scott's mother Tina Brown were cleared of a charge of child cruelty.

The court heard Jacob called an ambulance in the early hours of 1 January 2002.

"He said it was for his baby son who was not breathing and was bleeding from his nose," prosecutor Jeffrey Pegden QC told the court.

"He said his son had woken for a bottle and he had given him some milk.

"He had winded him and the next minute he had stopped breathing."

But the post-mortem examination found no recent milk in the baby's stomach.

"The pathologist concluded the fractures indicated a forceful squeezing of the chest on at least two occasions - one at the time of death," said Mr Pegden.

Scott died from imposed suffocation or chest compression, the court was told.

Jacob, an unemployed furniture polisher, had denied the charges against him. He will be held in custody until he is sentenced on 21 November.