A DAD accused of organising an acid attack on his three-year-old son told a jury he could not imagine doing such a thing even in his dreams.

Wearing a white long-sleeved shirt, jeans and trainers the clean-shaven father was called to the witness box at Worcester Crown Court today. The 40-year-old Afghan swore the oath on the Koran. Together with his six co-defendants he denies a conspiracy to attack the boy in Home Bargains, Worcester at 2.16pm on Saturday, July 21 last year. Speaking through a Dari interpreter he was asked questions by his barrister, Phil Bradley QC, answering in a soft voice. He acknowledged hiring private investigators to follow his family after giving them his wife's photo, address and car registration and later employing what he was told were 'cheaper and better' investigators after speaking to a co-defendant in the alleged conspiracy, fellow Afghan Jabar Paktia who had in turn arranged a meeting with another co-defendant, Afghan asylum seeker Saied Hussini. Mr Bradley asked him: “In July did you arrange for acid to be thrown at your son?”

The dad replied: “No, never.”

Mr Bradley asked: “When was the first time that you learned that he had been injured?”

“When the police arrested me” the dad said. The father was asked how he felt when he learned what had happened. He said: "I was very shocked."

The self-employed father described how he was ‘stressed’ the first time his wife left him in 2012, taking their children with her, but was ‘very happy’ when they returned a few days later. He denied telling his wife she had ‘humiliated’ him or seeking advice about his marriage from an imam. Mr Bradley asked him: “Did you go to your mosque and ask the imam whether you could kill your wife and your children because she had left you for a couple of days?”

“No I cannot even think of that” he answered. He further denied telling his wife he had 'options' to kill her and the children, that he did not care about the police or prison or that he would take her and the children to another country to have them killed, claims made by his estranged wife. When asked if he loved his children he said 'yes, they are my children', his mouth quivering and twitching. He was asked if he knew where his wife had taken their children when she left him again in 2016 and he answered 'no'.

The father said he attended every available supervised contact session with his children during family proceedings. He was made subject to a non-molestation order by the family courts but disputed his wife's allegations.

He said of the decision to allow him contact with his children: "I cannot express my happiness. Every day I was counting the moments and waiting when that day will arrive."

When he saw his children in September 2017 it was the first time in 17 months. He described how one of his children wanted him to pretend to be a horse and another to teach him magic and that he would bring them gifts. When asked if he had anything to do with the attack he said: "No, I would not ever imagine it in my dreams."

He acknowledged taking photographs of injuries he says his children suffered in his wife's care. He denied knowing co-defendants Adam Cech, Norbert Pulko and Jan Dudi, the men recorded on CCTV in Home Bargains on the day of the attack. Cech is the man said by the prosecution to have squirted the acid on the boy.

The trial continues.