City worker, 44, was drinking three bottles of wine a day before she and her Lithuanian lover, 45, shook their four-week-old baby to death, court hears
A City worker was drinking three bottles of wine a day before she and her Lithuanian lover shook their four-week-old baby to death, a court has heard.
Clare Sanders, 44, and her Lithuanian lover Tomas Vaitkevicius, 45, allegedly shook four-week-old Eva on three separate occasions during her short life.
Eva's tiny body suffered rib fractures and her cause of death was given as traumatic brain and spinal cord injury - but the couple blame each other in a 'cut throat' defence.
Tom Little, prosecuting, said the financial consultant's previous medical records show she was having 'two to three bottles of wine a day'.
Clare Sanders (above, at the Old Bailey in February), 44, was drinking three bottles of wine a day before she and her Lithuanian lover shook their baby to death, a court has heard
Sanders, 44, and Tomas Vaitkevicius (pictured above), 45, allegedly shook four-week-old Eva on three separate occasions. The couple blame each other in a 'cut throat' defence
He told the Old Bailey today: 'Both defendants appear to accept that it must have been the other one.
'Eva's birth was unremarkable from a medical point of view.
'You can put out of your mind any relevance to Eva's death from her birth. If you need any help look at the rib fractures.
'She was discharged after a few days and the relationship was back to where it started before.
Tom Little, prosecuting, said Sanders' previous medical records show she was having 'two to three bottles of wine a day'. The trial continues tomorrow with closing defence speeches
'Clare Sanders was back on the booze. You know that in 2015 her medical records show two to three bottles of wine a day.'
He added: 'On any view that is pretty good going. She accepts that this is what is recorded but that is the doctor's fault - it was just two to three glasses.
'The suggestion the doctor has got it wrong is laughable. She is a drinker. that is what she is doing with Tomas Vaitkevicius.
'It is one of the few things they had in common apart from Eva.'
Sanders and Vaitkevicius, from Mitcham, London, both deny murder and an alternative count of causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable child (pictured: file photo of the Old Bailey)
Sanders was heard screaming 'my baby, my baby' by neighbours on September 1, 2017 at her home in southwest London, prosecutors claim.
The infant was rushed to hospital where medics battled to save her life until 7am the following day when she was pronounced dead.
Sanders and Vaitkevicius, both from Mitcham, London, both deny murder and an alternative count of causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable child.
The trial continues tomorrow with defence closing speeches.