A CWMBRAN grandfather is alleged to have killed his five-week-old granddaughter while he was babysitting her, a jury was told today.

Mark Jones, 45, of no fixed abode, denies murdering baby Amelia Rose Jones, who had fractured legs, ribs and skull at the time of her death.

His trial began at Newport Crown Court yesterday.

Prosecutor Paul Lewis QC said Jones had sole care of Amelia on November 17 2012 while her mother Sarah went out with friends.

Before she returned, Jones made a 999 call saying he had gone to make a cup of coffee but came back to find the baby "panicking for breath".

He said she had been feeding and appeared well earlier that eventing.

Ambulance and police rushed to the house in Pontnewydd and took Amelia to the Royal Gwent Hospital, later the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff. But doctors could not bring her back to consciousness and said she had suffered catastrophic brain injury.

"Amelia had been the victim of violence on at least three occasions," Mr Lewis said. "But it was the most recent injury to her head and her brain that was the cause of her death. It is the prosecution's case that the injuries Amelia suffered in her short and tragic life were not, and could not be, accidental. They were deliberately inflicted by her grandfather Mark Jones.”

The defendant had not always been in contact with his daughter Sarah although he lived “around the corner”, but Mr Lewis said in the months leading up to Amelia’s death Jones had visited her house up to six times a day.

In an attempt to gain his daughter’s attention he pretended to have cancer and a brain tumour, even disguising his voice so he could call her from a withheld number claiming to be a doctor, the court heard.

“This was a cruel deception”, Mr Lewis said, saying Jones had even asked his daughter to help him into the bath because he was so weak from the alleged illness.

In the days leading up to Amelia’s death, Jones had made a strange comment to his daughter, Mr Lewis said, telling her: “Even though I don't like her dad, I do not hold grudges against a baby.”

Jones strongly disliked Amelia’s father Ian Skillern, Mr Lewis said, telling the jury it would be for them to consider if this could be a potential motive.

He said some of the medical details they would hear might be distressing, including evidence that her head injury was likely to have been caused by her head swinging towards a still object, or possibly an object hitting her head.

He said fractures near her ankle and knee were consistent with her being swung by the legs and said rib fractures were consistent with her being squeezed tightly.

Jones changed his story multiple times, Mr Lewis said. At first he told emergency services he couldn’t remember Amelia receiving any injury.

In his opening he said Jones had lied to police, claiming someone else had dropped Amelia that day, but the jury heard he had later admitted perverting the course of justice.

Mr Lewis said: "His detailed and calculated lies and deception reflected in that charge demonstrate the lengths he was prepared to go to to conceal the truth about Amelia's fatal injuries.”

When Jones realised doctors had found fractures he claimed to have stepped on a toy penguin and slipped over, dropping Amelia, Mr Lewis said.

He said he understood Jones' current defence was that he had slipped over twice while carrying Amelia, once after blacking out. Mr Lewis said: "We submit the latest version of events - two terrible accidents - is a pack of lies told in a desperate attempt to avoid the consequences of what he has done.

"He unlawfully killed her. He intended either to kill her or cause her really serious harm.”

Proceeding.