Parents blameless in baby son’s death

Tyrone Brookes and Sally Bullock “nurtured and supported their son in every way”, West Yorkshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Mary Burke said.

The inquest in Huddersfield heard that John Joseph Bullock, a twin, had died aged three months on April 10.

He had been born prematurely on Christmas Day but had been doing well. The hearing was told that Mr Brookes had been “overjoyed” when he discovered his partner was pregnant after they met in Batley.

John and his twin Paul slept in travel cots in the lounge while their father slept on a sofa in their flat in Ravensthorpe. This allowed their mother to catch up on sleep.

On April 10, Ms Bullock was woken by the sound of Paul crying and walked into the lounge where her partner was asleep with John on his chest. But she immediately realised something was wrong and rang the emergency services.

Despite the best efforts by medics at Dewsbury and District Hospital baby John could not be revived and he was pronounced dead at 8.47am.

Dr Brian Rodgers, who carried out a post mortem examination with Dr Marta Cohen, told the parents if their son had been in a cot at the time he would have given the cause of death as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

But because this had not been the case his cause of death was ‘unascertained’. “There is nothing in my view that you need to reproach yourself about,” he added.

Ms Burke recorded an open conclusion. She said: “It was a sudden event. There’s nothing that you or anyone else could have done that would have done to prevent it.”