A stepfather who shook a month toddler to death after staying up late playing video games has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years. Christopher Stockton, 38, was in sole charge of Charlie Roberts when the boy was shaken so violently that his brain moved inside his skull at their home in Darlington.
The killer then tried to cover up the murder by claiming little Charlie had choked on a Hobnob biscuit. However, Charlie's mother Paula Roberts, 41, was suspicious enough about Stockton that she had set up a spy camera above her son's cot, a trial at Teesside Crown Court heard in December. Despite her fears she stayed in a relationship with him, even after she voiced her concerns about Stockton to her brother.
Having initially denied a child cruelty charge, Roberts was to eventually admit neglecting her son by failing to get Charlie medical treatment for bruising caused by Stockton over several weeks. Her boyfriend was convicted of murder and child cruelty and was jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years. Roberts has been jailed for four years.
Stepfather Christopher Stockton, 38, has been convicted of murdering month-old Charlie Roberts pictured together. The boy centre died after being violently shaken when left alone in the care of Stockton by mother-of-five Paula Roberts right. Stockton, who had moved in with Roberts and her little boy just seven days earlier, was in sole charge of Charlie when he inflicted a severe head injury which caused widespread bleeding on the brain in January Nicholas Lumley KC, prosecuting, told jurors that Stockton 'shook or threw him with such violence, deliberately and forcefully harming little Charlie'.
Roberts had left the home minutes before to go for an eye test, and Stockton, who was off work ill and who had stayed up into the early hours playing Xbox games, must have snapped that January morning, the court was told. Stockton rang and could be heard on a recording repeatedly saying 'come on mate' and 'wakey wakey' to the little boy, who was not breathing.
