Video shows laughter just 
hours before boys stabbed

Their father, giving evidence at the Antrim Crown Court murder trial for the second day, also wept at the seven-second clip he recorded the night before his former fiancée stabbed the little boys, one of them fatally.

Recorded in the kitchen of the family home at Magheramorne on March 1 2020, the defendant is seen holding her 11-month-old son by both hands, helping him walk around the central island in the kitchen as he and his big brother chase a skipping lamb, their laughter and giggles filling the room.

Less than 24 hours later, the boys would suffer multiple stab wounds inflicted by their own mum.

The 41-year-old mother of four is on trial accused of murdering her son who was two months short of his third birthday and the attempted murder of his 11-month-old brother on March 2, 2020.

The jury has already heard harrowing evidence the “highly qualified nurse” put multiple morphine pain relief patches on the children before stabbing them numerous times in the bedroom of the family home.

Both boys had sustained stab wounds to their necks and abdomens but the oldest victim died as a result of a neck wound which severed an artery and a vein, the blade penetrating so deep that it touched his spine, while his little brother came within millimetres of the same fate and had to undergo emergency surgery.

It is the Crown case that when the self-confessed killer stabbed them, she either intended to kill them or at least intended to cause her infant sons serious harm.

The defence argue that at the time she was suffering from an abnormality of mind which substantially impaired her thinking, decision making and perception of consequences.

She had also stabbed herself, put the same morphine patches on her body and there were empty packets of painkillers and tranquillisers found in the blood-stained bedroom.

While defence QC Kieran Mallon suggested the short clip played to the jury showed the defendant as a “fantastic mum,” the jury had earlier watched two other videos, one taken during an argument over a Chinese takeaway and the other, a 12-minute video, recorded the morning after.

Recorded in the early hours of June 20 2019, the jury could see on the footage the boys’ father walking around the house holding the baby with the other little boy following him crying, and he can he heard telling the defendant: “Get your hands off me! You are f****** crazy. Sort yourself out. There are two babies in the house. F****** wise yourself up.”

The jury has heard how the defendant stabbed herself in the leg that evening.

The 12-minute video recorded the following morning was played to the jury yesterday. With the couple screaming at each other at the tops of their voices while the four children were all in the house, the video shows a blood-stained bed, the two little boys still asleep, but lying close by is the knife she used to cut herself.

“There’s the f****** knife, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, blood there, blood there, baby there, baby there … I want to know what went in in your f****** mind because you are a f****** great mum.

“I’m taking the babies out of here and I’m keeping them until I get social services to help me with this situation,” he shouted at the defendant, threatening that he would send the videos to each of their families, the police and social services.

He told Mr Mallon, however, that he had never shared the videos with anyone, fearing that she would be able to convince the authorities there was nothing wrong and that he would be excluded from seeing his children.

“I thought it better that I was there, even if there was a lot of shouting because a lot of shouting would be better than what occurred in March,” said the grieving dad.

He conceded the video showed a “pretty unhealthy atmosphere” in the house and that although he is “quite disgusted at myself” for shouting and swearing, the video “showed the aftermath of a night that I can only describe as sheer hell”.

The trial continues.