A murder-accused mum has told jurors ‘I didn’t kill my son’ as she summed up her own case after sacking her legal team.

Christina Robinson, 30, denies murdering her son Dwelaniyah at their home on Bracken Court in Ushaw Moor, County Durham on November 5, 2022, and four charges of child cruelty.

After Robinson dramatically sacked her own legal team the day after giving evidence last Friday (March 15) she returned to the witness stand on Tuesday where she summed up her defence case effectively in place of a lawyer.

She told jurors: “I did not murder my child. I did not kill my child. I did not forcibly immerse him or submerge him in hot water.

“I ask for you to not find my guilty for something I did not do.

“There was no real motive here because I did not do this.

“I said before that one of the reasons I had lied was because I didn’t believe that anyone would believe that anyone would believe the truth. Look at where I am – I was right.

“The truth goes against what everyone is saying, I am aware, but it is the truth.

“I simply did not kill my child.

“The prosecution would have you believe that every injury was caused by me. I say it was not. Dwelaniyah was a very clumsy child, anybody who knew him can confirm that and yes he did have daily bumps and falls.”

She used the speech to highlight what she called discrepancies in the expert evidence heard by the jury, suggesting there are “so many contradictions which simply do not add up” in the prosecution case.

She told the court it had previously been suggested by experts that Dwelaniyah’s burns, which covered 15 to 20% of his body, had been caused on a stove, before they said these had been inflicted by hot water.

The prosecution alleges she lost her temper and violently shook the boy on the day he collapsed, never to recover, and he died of a fatal injury.

Robinson, originally from Tamworth, is also accused of deliberately submerging her son in “scalding” water and failing to seek professional treatment for the burns.

“(On) me not taking him to hospital (for his burns), I have admitted before you that I was ashamed because of what I had done accidentally, not deliberately, as they (the prosecution) would have you believe,” she said.

“How can I submerge somebody without being burnt myself?”

The former personal trainer previously accepted she had beaten her son, but said: “I have admitted before you that I was misguided but my reason behind it was simply that I believed I was doing the right thing. I was telling the truth in regards to the scriptures, why I believed that was the right thing to do.

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“I had not used the cane before.”

She continued: “There’s nothing that says [I] definitely did this.”

The jury is expected to retire to reach a verdict later this afternoon.