A FATHER broke down in tears as he told a jury how he had found his baby son lying dead in the bath.

Wayne Dale said he had gone downstairs at the house in Kyreside, Tenbury Wells, because he thought his partner Lisa Passey was in the bathroom with 13-month-old Kian.

But as he was using the computer she appeared behind him and asked him to go back to the bathroom. When he opened the door, he saw what had happened.

"My son was under the water," he said. "I scooped him up and ran downstairs. I screamed. I jumped a few stairs in the first flight and went into the kitchen and put him on the floor. He wasn't breathing."

He said he was given instructions on the telephone on how to resuscitate before police and paramedics arrived. An air ambulance landed in a nearby field and Kian and Passey were flown to Birmingham children's hospital. Dale followed by road but when he got there he was told resuscitation attempts had failed and his little boy was dead.

He told the jury that earlier that day, Saturday, September 26, 2015, he had gone into Tenbury and met a friend, Jeanette Morgan, and invited her to visit. He said when he returned home there had been "an atmosphere" between him and Passey because she had not wanted their friend there.

He said that when he was upstairs in the early evening at bath time he thought he heard Passey going up on her way to the bathroom. He went into their bedroom and then into the separate toilet. Without checking in the bathroom, he went downstairs.

"I just thought she was there," he said. "If I had thought she was not there, I would have stayed in the bathroom or looked in."

He went back downstairs and smoked a cigarette he had previously rolled and then burnt music on to a CD on his computer at Mrs Morgan's request before he realised Passey was not upstairs.

He said he had drunk a small amount of lager during the day but was not even "tipsy."

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

The trial continues.