Dwelaniyah Robinson murder-accused mum says motive makes no sense

A woman accused of murdering her three-year-old son said the motive suggested by prosecutors "makes no sense".

Dwelaniyah Robinson suffered more than 60 injuries including scalding burns and wounds from a caning before his death near Durham in November 2022.

Christina Robinson, 30, denies murder, manslaughter and four counts of child cruelty.

In her closing speech at Newcastle Crown court, she said the prosecution case was full of contradictions.

Warning - this article contains distressing content.

Prosecutors said Dwelaniyah died after a campaign of "sadistic cruelty" and punishment by his mother and she had had enough of him after the injuries she caused him made him an "inconvenience".

Representing herself after sacking her legal team, Ms Robinson told the jurors that "makes no sense".

Ms Robinson, who grew up in Tamworth, Staffordshire before moving to Ushaw Moor near Durham, said: "I did not murder my child, I did not kill my child."

In her speech lasting just over an hour, Ms Robinson also denied forcibly immersing her son in scalding water in the weeks before he died.

She said he was burned "accidentally" when she was rinsing him and she was too "ashamed" to seek medical help so treated the injuries herself.

Ms Robinson also said she lied to the police about various issues, including how her son was injured, because she was "afraid" she would not be believed.

"Look at where I am," she told jurors, adding: "I was right."

She said the prosecution case was based on "uncertain" expert "opinions" and "theories" and there were "so many inconsistencies, so many contradictions which simply do not add up".

She asked why, if she had forcefully shaken her son as the prosecution claimed, there were not more external bruises.

Ms Robinson said other experts had "praised" her for how she had treated his burns, adding her son was not in "excruciating pain" as the some of the injures had been deep enough to numb nerve fibres.

The court has heard Dwelaniyah collapsed and stopped breathing at his home on Bracken Court shortly before 16:00 GMT on 5 November 2022, but it was at least 20 minutes before Ms Robinson called an ambulance.

In her speech, she told jurors she had been "focused" on "fighting to save" her son's life by performing CPR, adding:" So do not use my delay of calling 999 against me as a sign of guilt, it simply was not."

She also said the prosecution claimed "every injury was caused by me" but her son was a "very clumsy child".

She admitted using a cane to strike him but said the only time she did that was about an hour before he collapsed.

Ms Robinson said that was "down to my beliefs which I believed were right at the time", adding she was following the Bible-based teachings of her religion, the Black Hebrew Israelites, which talked about using a rod for correction.

"It was in the Bible," she said, adding: "It was mentioned in a lesson I was listening to. I believed this was the right way."

She said she now accepts she was "misguided".

Ms Robinson also said if she had been injuring her son, wouldn't he have been "scared" of her, but there was no evidence of that.

She said she wanted a large family and Dwelaniayh was her "first-born".

Ms Robinson also said she had suffered four miscarriages which "nearly broke" her, asking jurors why then she would kill her son.

"If anybody has ever experienced a child die before you, you would not do this," she said.

Ms Robinson said: "There is no true motive for me to have done this to my child, to my first born and still want more children.

"It makes no sense. So please do not find me guilty for something that I have not done.

"If you find me guilty based on opinions based on assumptions, based on things that simply do not add up, where is the justice?"

The trial continues.

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