A MOTHER accused of neglecting her child admitted she delayed taking him to hospital when he suffered a “seizure” because she feared he would taken by social services.

Charmain Rippon, 23, told a court she recognised it was “important” for him to be checked after he went “completely floppy” for ten seconds in her partner’s arms but feared losing her baby son because she couldn’t explain bruising to his body.

“That’s all that went through my head,” she said. “I could lose him. I didn’t want to lose him.”

She said she could only explain some of the 21 bruises that were found on nine separate parts of his body when he was taken to Southampton General Hospital the following day in April last year.

The youngster was put in foster care after medics found him emaciated and suffering multiple fractures to the ribs alongside the bruising.

He also had bleeding on the brain and behind the eyes, which doctors thought was caused by violent shaking.

The baby’s father, Luke Lock, 21, is accused of inflicting the injuries while Rippon is accused of covering up for him.

Prosecutor Christopher Parker QC also cross-examined Rippon about an incident 12 days earlier when she said a nappy box dropped on her son’s belly while Lock was trying to change him. The baby subsequently suffered from bouts of sickness.

Mr Parker questioned why she did not tell staff at a walk in centre, which she visited twice in one day, or a health visitor about the incident.

Rippon claimed she did, but it was not recorded in the medical notes. She said a nurse at the walk-in centre had already “fobbed her off “and told her it “wasn’t important” and that she “wasn’t going to keep wasting her breath with them.”

Yesterday the court heard how the night before her second and final day giving evidence she had been subjected to intimidation.

Defence barrister Michael Vere-Hodge QC asked what had happened.

Rippon replied: “I was in bed about 12.30 just dozing off and there was pretty much half a slab of concrete coming through my window.”

She added the front wall of her flat had been spray painted.

“I haven’t really slept much at all,” she told the court.

Rippon, of Wavell Road, Bitterne, denies two counts of child cruelty through neglect and exposing the child to unnecessary suffering.

Lock, of Albert Road South, denies inflicting one count each of grievous bodily harm, causing actual bodily harm and child cruelty.

Proceeding.