A DAD had been drinking before his 13 month old baby son drowned in the bath, a jury was told.

Kian Dale drowned in the bath at home in Kyreside, Tenbury Wells, only to be discovered by his father, Wayne Dale, who attempted to resuscitate him.

Wayne Dale, aged 44, of no fixed abode, and Lisa Passey, aged 28, of Kyreside both deny manslaughter due to gross negligence.

The jury of seven men and five women heard that the couple left their baby son unsupervised in the bath at their three bedroom home in Kyreside where the 13 month old drowned on September 26, 2015.

Senior social worker Andrea Barrell was working for children’s services at Worcestershire County Council at the time of Kian's death.

She gave evidence from the witness box at Worcester Crown Court today as the prosecution case by Jonas Hankin and Antonie Muller continued.

Miss Barrell had interviewed the parents and taken detailed hand-written notes which were then transferred to computer. Both defendants told her they would not normally leave a child in the bath unsupervised.

Passey had run the bath which she told the social worker contained about four inches of water and Dale had taken his son upstairs to bath him.

Dale told the social worker he thought Kian would be safe in his blue bath chair, attached to the bath by suckers. The bathroom is upstairs at the front of the house, the garden at the back.

As she interviewed the couple she described Dale as ‘subdued’ and Passey as ‘hostile’.

Passey was said to have told Miss Barrell: “I know loads of parents whose kids have drowned and the parents weren’t blamed.”

Miss Barrell said: “I recall thinking at the time it was quite a bizarre comment to make.”

In his statement Dale said he left his son playing in the bath and that he had never seen the bath chair tip ‘in any way shape or form’.

He said he felt he should be downstairs as a friend, Jeanette Morgan, had arrived and she had done a lot for his family. While he was downstairs he rolled a cigarette as Passey and Ms Morgan smoked in the garden.

They were playing music by UB40 and Ms Morgan asked Dale to burn it onto a CD which he began to do via a laptop. He said he felt like he was only downstairs ‘a few minutes’.

Kian was left in the bath at around 5.30pm and previous computer evidence suggests Dale accessed his computer between 5.33pm and 5.46pm.

When he was asked by Passey to go and get Kian out of the bath, Dale went upstairs to hear water running. His son's chair and his head were under the water.

He scooped his son out of the bath, the water by now running 'off the edge'.

He said: “I just panicked when I saw him. I was screaming for her, for Lisa. I placed him (Kian) down on the floor in the kitchen. I think I was trying to wake him up.”

He told the police he had drunk two cans of Stella but told them: “I was compos mentis.” He rated himself two out of 10 on a scale of drunkenness (10 being the most drunk and zero being sober).

Passey said in her statement that you could hear the shower from downstairs but not the taps in the bathroom which is upstairs and that music was playing but not loudly.

She said: “It didn’t seem that long that we was downstairs.”

She said she had not drunk and alcohol. She described her son as ‘blue’ when Dale laid him on the floor in the kitchen. Passey said she turned off the taps after Kian had been removed from the bath by Dale. The bath had been full to the brim.

The trial continues.