A JURY has retired to consider its verdict in the trial of a man accused of murdering two-year-old Harry House.

Joseph Eke, 22, is standing trail at Winchester Crown Court accused of fatally attacking his then partner Lauren O’Neill’s son at their Broadmayne home on May 26 last year.

Eke, of St Lawrence Road, Upwey, denies murder and the charges of causing grievous bodily harm and unlawfully wounding the child.

The jury heard that Miss O’Neill first met the defendant on Facebook in January last year and he moved into her house in Main Street in March.

In evidence, Eke told the jury that he had been in trouble when he was younger but had “settled down” since moving in with Miss O’Neill.

He said that he loved Harry and “would never harm a kid.”

Jurors previously heard that Harry was injured while Miss O’Neill had gone to buy washing powder from a shop 100 metres away from their house.

The prosecution said that Eke murdered Harry by “kicking or punching” him in the stomach.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate Harry for over 30 minutes but he was pronounced dead at Dorset County Hospital just an hour-and-half after the alleged attack.

Jurors heard that Harry died as a result of blunt force trauma to his abdomen which was of such force that it that split his pancreas in two.

A post-mortem examination revealed he had five fractured ribs as well as a “life threatening” skull fracture and associated brain damage.

During the trial, jurors heard from medical experts who concluded Harry’s injuries were “non-accidental” and caused by “excessive and deliberate force”.

Home Office pathologist Amanda Jeffery told jurors that Harry’s injures would have become fatal in a “matter of minutes” after they were inflicted.

Prosecutor Adam Feest QC told the court that Eke was the last person to see Harry uninjured and the first person to discover him unwell.

But the defendant told the jury that Miss O’Neill was a “faker” who “didn’t care” about her son’s death, maintaining that was on lying on the sofa the whole time she was at the shops.

The court previously heard that a month prior to Harry’s death, on Easter Sunday, he was admitted to hospital with an eight centimetre wound from his hairline to his lip that required more than 20 stitches.

The defence said the toddler had cut himself by falling on a plate, while Harry’s great-grandmother Christine Grantham told the jury that Harry said Eke had pushed him.

Jurors also heard evidence from Eke’s sister Lisa Hughes who said that in the month before Harry’s death she had been considering reporting Miss O’Neill to social services because of her drinking and the ‘lack of routine’ in Harry’s life.

Summing up the case, Judge Mrs Justice May said: “The crown says that when you examine the evidence, taken together with time the injuries would have been inflicted, then there is only one conclusion.

“The defence argued that Lauren was alone with Harry before coming down to put the washing on and going to the shop. When she was alone with Harry she could have inflicted those injuries.”

The jury retired to begin deliberations just before 12.30pm on Monday.