THE jury has retired to consider its verdict in a manslaughter case against a former couple after their baby son drowned in the bath.

Wayne Dale and former partner Lisa Passey deny the manslaughter of 13-month-old Kian Dale by gross negligence.

The jury of seven men and five women retired at 12.08pm today after the judge summed up the case for them at Worcester Crown Court.

Kian died in the bath at the home the former couple shared at Kyreside, Tenbury Wells.

Mother-of-three Passey had run a bath for Kian but Dale had been bathing him on September 26, 2015.

Dale, now living at an address in Malvern, went downstairs, leaving his son in a bath seat, when a friend, Jeanette Morgan, visited the house.

While downstairs he burned a CD of UB40 at Ms Morgan’s request. When he returned upstairs he found his son submerged in the bath with the taps running and the water very high.

Passey called 999 at 5.58pm and at 6.08pm an air ambulance arrived at Kyreside for Kian.

The ambulance arrived at Birmingham Children’s Hospital at 7.18pm with Kian and Passey.

At 7.22pm attempts to resuscitate him stopped and at 8.17pm baby Kian was pronounced dead.

The laptop on which the CD was burned was in use between 5.33pm and 5.46pm.

The computer evidence was not able to show who was using the laptop between those times.

There were no straps on Kian's bath seat, bought from a charity shop.

Warnings on the seat said children should not be left in the seat in the bath.

Judge Robert Juckes QC, summing up the case, told the jury that the facts were, to a considerable extent, agreed between prosecution and defence.

He suggested the central issue was to what extent the negligence displayed could be considered 'gross'.

He reminded the jury that the burden of proof lay with the prosecution and that they must look at the role of each defendant separately.

He referred them to the evidence of senior social worker Andrea Barrell who said that when she spoke to Passey on September 27 2015 the defendant told her she knew 'lots of parents whose babies drown and their parents weren't blamed'.

But the social worker also noted the that the house was in good condition with safety features for children including locks on cupboards and children's rooms decorated to a high standard.

In his evidence 44-year-old Dale, a father of seven, said of the incident: "I scooped him up and ran downstairs. I screamed and I jumped the first flight of stairs. I had him on the floor. He wasn't breathing."

He claimed he was 'confused' and that he thought Passey was looking after their son in the bath while he was downstairs.

Passey, aged 28, of Kyreside acknowledged she ran the bath but denied at any stage taking over the bathing of their son from Dale.

The trial will resume on Monday.