Jacob Crouch: Derbyshire stepdad told baby's mum to “be more strict” as 10-month-old coughed and struggled to eat

Craig Crouch’s comment was made in in a text on December 15 – two weeks before 10-month-old Jacob Crouch died after suffering at least 39 rib fractures in a minimum of four separate assaults.

It came in reply to a text from Jacob’s mother Gemma Barton, 32, that “Jacob keeps making a fuss”, adding: “He was hard work with his tea – he keeps coughing.”

After Crouch, 39, replied “you’re just going to have to be more strict with him”, she said: “I was being strict with him and doing what we did with him at the weekend.”

The couple’s trial heard previously that Jacob was assaulted on a regular basis for at least six months from the age of four-months-old and was referred to as “the devil” in one text message.

Jurors heard Crouch asked Barton in a text whether she had “put back what Jacob threw back down him” – referring to vomit – and the baby’s mother confirmed she had.

Jacob died “in his cot, alone” on December 30, 2020, at his home near Swadlincote.

He had suffered peritonitis – an inflammation of the lining of abdominal organs – after suffering at least 39 rib fractures in a minimum of four separate assaults.

Mary Prior KC said Jacob was “kicked or stamped on with such severe force that it fractured a rib and caused a tear in his stomach and bowel”.

In further texts between the couple sent on December 6, 2020 and read out today (Friday), after hearing Jacob had thrown up “all over” Barton, Crouch told her: “If he throws up on the carpet it will stink forever.

"If you had been 45 seconds slower he would have thrown-up in the living room.”

In another message Barton wrote: “Jacob’s just crying – I’ve sent him back upstairs to bed with a smacked bum. I’ve left him up there now until he has lunch.

"I get that he has a runny nose and sore bum but he needs to learn to play.”

On December 27 – three days before Jacob’s death – Barton told Crouch the baby was “just fussing” and “wont’ stop crying”.

She said: “He’s been crying for the last 10 minutes so I have put him in his room.”

In the days that followed Jacob’s death Crouch sent various texts to friends and family members.

In one he wrote: “My Jacob will never be forgotten – we will have a huge day in memory of him. He was amazing, beautiful and perfect in every way. He was our future."

Speaking about neighbours in another message, he said: “Mornings are the hardest I feel so angry inside. We feel like curtains are twitching and people are watching."

Barton, of Ray Street, Heanor and Crouch, of Donisthorpe Lane, Swadlincote, both deny murder, causing or allowing the death of a child, causing a child to suffer serious physical harm and three counts of child cruelty.

The trial continues.