THE parents of a baby boy who drowned in the bath while they were downstairs at their home in Tenbury Wells have been sent to jail.

Wayne Dale, aged 44, and 28-year-old Lisa Passey were both found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence after a two-week trial at Worcester Crown Court.

Dale was given a sentence of four-and-a-half years and Passey was given a four-year sentence.

Judge Robert Juckes, QC, said the main mitigation was the "very great loss" they had both suffered.

The couple have since separated and sat apart in the dock without speaking throughout the trial and the sentencing hearing.

The jury was told their baby Kian, who was 13 months old, died in the bath at the home the former couple shared at Kyreside, Tenbury Wells, on the evening of Saturday, September 26, 2015.

It had been Dale's responsibility to take care of bath-time and Passey would take over for the drying afterwards, the judge said.

Dale had left his son in the bath and had gone downstairs "to socialise" with a friend who had arrived, the judge said. The parents were away from the bathroom for between 12 and 15 minutes and had left Kian in a chair which had warnings stating that a child should not be left further than arm's length away while seated in it.

"No-one who has been a parent or a grandparent would think of leaving a child unattended in a bath," the judge said. It was slippery and at Kian's age, children could fall "in an inkling," he said, and leaving them for any time longer than a few seconds would be considered grossly negligent.

Dale, he said, had run an "absurd" defence claiming he had seen Passey go to the bathroom.

Rachel Brand, QC, defending, said Passey now had a new partner and was expecting his child in July. She had had to stop using Facebook because of the things people were saying about her and had been subjected to unpleasant abuse outside the court.

"The consequences are going to be lifelong," Miss Brand said.

Dale, a father-of-seven, later moved to an address in Malvern, Passey stayed in Kyreside until a flood forced her to seek temporary accommodation elsewhere, the court heard at an earlier hearing.