Husband 'pulled wife from dead baby'

Angela Cannings has spent 16 days on trial

The husband of a woman accused of murdering her two infant sons told a jury he had to pull his wife from one as she desperately tried to resuscitate him.

Terry Cannings, 48, told Winchester Crown Court he had arrived home in November 1991 after his wife Angela Cannings had called him to say their son Jason had stopped breathing.

Mr Cannings, a baker, told the jury he got to the second-floor flat in Winterbourne Gunner, Wiltshire, to find his wife desperately trying to revive Jason while paramedics attended the scene.

He told the court a paramedic asked him to get hold of his wife because it was too late to save his son.

Medical evidence

"The worst thing I had to do was to pull Angela off Jason. She was trying to resuscitate him," he said.

Cannings, 38, of Salisbury, Wilts, denies murdering seven-week-old Jason in 1991 and 18-week-old Matthew Cannings in 1999.

Cannings' first-born child Gemma died aged 13 weeks in 1989.

She does not face a charge in relation to this death.

On the 16th day of the trial, the jury had earlier been told to view Gemma's death as a "backdrop" to the later deaths of Jason and Matthew.

The prosecution alleges Cannings smothered her two sons and that they did not die from cot death as was first thought.

Cannings was arrested only after the death of Matthew in 1999 and prosecution medical evidence has shown that the two boys have features that could indicate they were smothered.

The trial continues.