Father with 'post-natal depression' killed daughter
A father who believed he was suffering from male post-natal depression searched the internet for information on how to kill a baby before suffocating his six-month-old daughter, a jury heard.
Mark Bruton-Young, 36, an architect, allegedly murdered his daughter, Harriet, after he resented the intrusion of the “unplanned” baby into his married life, Bristol Crown Court heard.
The jury was told he used the search engine Google to research methods of killing his daughter after he failed to bond with her, and blamed her for his marriage problems.
Bruton-Young spent months on a work computer searching for ways to kill, including punching babies in the stomach, cot death, choking and poisoning, before deciding on suffocation, the jury heard.
Paul Dunkels, prosecuting, said: “It is the prosecution's case that having searched the internet for this information, being overwhelmed with being a father and resenting his child, he killed his daughter Harriet by suffocating her.”
Bruton-Young denies murder between June 26 and June 27 2009.
The court heard Harriet was an unplanned, unwanted child when she was born to her father and her mother, Clare, also an architect, of Kingsway, Glos., in December 2008.
Bruton-Young, an architect at RPS, a Bristol firm, had problems coping with the birth almost immediately.
Colleagues described him as ''depressed'' and claimed he spent all his time on his computer.
Mr Dunkels said: “It was not a planned pregnancy and from the outset her father had difficulty in coming to terms with fatherhood and was depressed by it.
“He resented the intrusion of Harriet into his married life. Using a computer at work to search for information, it provided a window into his thoughts and his intentions.
“Initially, he searched for information on bonding with your baby, depression and coping with fatherhood.”
But in early February 2009 Bruton-Young used a work computer to look at “how to get an unwanted baby adopted".
He searched for information on “how a child might be harmed or die and a baby being suffocated, and what signs might be detected if a baby was suffocated.''
Forensic searches on the hard-drives of three work computers found he made hundreds of searches between January and June 2009.
In January he Googled 'coming to terms with fatherhood'.
But by February these had developed into post natal depression searches and even "I thought I wanted kids but now I don't know", the court heard.
Over the next few months his searches explored death by anti-freeze poisoning, lead poisoning and the effects of punching a child in the stomach. He searched 'dies of suffocation' on June 8, 2009.
Mr Dunkels said: “The defendant's searches begin to concentrate on suffocation and the signs that might be left behind if a baby was suffocated.” The court head Bruton-Young had received counselling and was seeing a health visitor in the six months following Harriet's birth
Is that for real. 
