Tony Bartlett, 39, of Axminster in Devon, has been convicted of murder after shaking his four-week-old baby Atticus to death14:39, 08 Jul 2026Updated 14:54, 08 Jul 2026A father has been convicted of murder after he shook his four-week-old baby to death.‌Tony Bartlett, 39, of Axminster in Devon, inflicted severe injuries on his baby son Atticus in a moment of "pure violence" when he shook him at the family home in Chard, a trial at Bristol Crown Court heard.‌The trial heard Atticus suffered severe internal trauma to his brain and spinal cord during the incident on July 16 2022 and died in hospital seven days later. The tot also sustained three rib fractures that could not be attributed to resuscitation efforts, the court was told.‌After a four week trial at Bristol Crown Court a jury today found him guilty of murder and he will be sentenced later this month. Bartlett, a postman, denied both charges of manslaughter and murder. He clasped his head in his hands and bent down crying as his verdict was read out.His ex-partner and Atticus’ mother, Evelyn Ballentyne, was originally arrested before being treated as a witness. She was not charged with any criminal offence and gave evidence at Bartlett’s trial.‌Jurors heard how Bartlett and Ms Ballentyne had gone to a pub and comedy club for their first evening out since Atticus’s birth on the night the incident occurred.Ms Ballentyne’s mother, Rachel Donovan and her husband Andrew, came to the family’s home in Chard, Somerset, to babysit.Over the evening, Bartlett consumed 8.5 pints of beer before returning home just before 11pm with Ms Ballentyne, the court heard.‌Prosecutor Charles Row KC told the trial Bartlett's "loss of temper and frustration" was "almost certainly fuelled" by eight and a half pints of alcohol.He said: "Mr Bartlett can't admit to himself that when he was drunk, in a moment of pure violence, he did something that he will regret for the rest of his life."Ms Ballentyne went upstairs to take her makeup off and left Bartlett with Atticus on the sofa downstairs. The court heard how Atticus was difficult to feed and it could sometimes take as long as an hour.‌That evening, he had been “grizzly” and it was taking a while for him to drink his milk. When Ms Ballentyne came back downstairs a few minutes later, she said she heard the four-week old, who was still on Bartlett’s lap, “make two big gulps as if he was trying to breathe but couldn’t”.She picked up the baby, but she told the court her son had “gone all floppy” and grey and she tried to shake him because he was “not breathing” and she wanted to “wake him up”.She started to scream, the jury was told, and gave the baby back to Bartlett as she tried to get help from the neighbours.She called 11 and told the call operator there was a foamy substance and milk coming out of the baby’s nose. She said: “My baby’s not breathing, can you please come.‌“He’s not breathing, he’s four weeks old, please hurry.”A medical expert said Atticus’ injuries were consistent with those usually sustained in “high speed traffic accidents or falling from a multi storey building”.Paediatric neurosurgeon Amedeo Calisto, who examined the baby's injuries, added that the four-week-old had sustained “significant head trauma” where veins at the top of the head had been “stretched and broken”.‌He told jurors that no “natural cause would have caused this” and “normal or rough handling of children” would not have resulted in Atticus’ injuries.Speaking to police later that night, Bartlett said Atticus “seemed to make some stuttering sounds” and “all of a sudden he just seems lifeless and all of a sudden he just seemed more lifeless and he made this weird breathless sound”.In a police interview two days after the incident, Bartlett said he gave Atticus a bottle when his partner went upstairs but he wouldn’t drink it. He added he was “rubbing and patting” Atticus and bouncing him on his knee but thought he was gassy.‌He said a few moments later he released some gas and made a gulping sound “almost like it was his last breath”.When asked by officers if he caused the injuries, he said: “I don’t think so, no. I didn't shake him”However, at a later police interview in October that year, Bartlett said: “Maybe I was drunk, I didn’t handle him correctly.”‌Jurors also heard the child’s mother had told a nurse near the time of the incident: “I know something happened in that two minutes I was out of the room but I don’t know what.”When paramedics arrived on the scene, they said it was “chaotic” and a neighbour was doing CPR on the child.Atticus was taken by ambulance to Musgrove Park Hospital and then Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) in the early hours of the next morning.‌Bartlett was arrested the next day at the hospital where Ms Ballentyne told nurses she believed her partner never could have done it. “He would never hurt his son,” she said.After both parents were told Atticus was “unlikely to live an independent life”, the four-week-old was taken off a ventilator on July 23.Jurors heard how Ms Ballentyne told a police officer - and later hospital staff - that she had shaken Atticus to revive him after hearing the gasping noises.‌Defence barrister Nigel Power KC told jurors that Ms Ballentyne said on four occasions that she had shaken Atticus. However, Ms Ballentyne now insists she is sure that she did not shake her son.However, in a police interview, Ms Ballentyne said Atticus was “already lifeless when I came into the living room,” jurors heard.Whilst summing up the evidence, Mr Justice Cavanagh KC said the couple had got together in July 2019 but the relationship had been “up and down”.Article continues belowMs Ballentyne said they had physical arguments where there “would be pushing and shoving from both of us” and that they had described each other as “hot-headed”.The judge told him after the verdict: "I will not sentence today. In light of the finding, bail must be withdrawn in the mean time. I will ask that the link to His Majesty’s court is now cut and the defendant is taken down"Bartlett will be sentenced on July 24.