THE mother of a baby boy who died after he was allegedly beaten, raped and burned has described the violent hours leading to her son’s death.

Mervyn Kenneth Douglas Bell went on trial in the Supreme Court today, pleading not guilty to murdering and sexually assaulting the baby last year.

He is accused of taking the 10-month-old child away from his mother in Broome and assaulting him over a 15-hour period before taking his body to the Fortescue River Road House on March 19 last year.

The boy’s mother was the first witness to take the stand, describing how Bell beat her naked in a Broome street. She also tearfully recalled the moment police told her the boy had died.

The mother, 28, told the court she went with Bell at his cousin’s house where they were all drinking. A verbal argument started and the woman left for a friend’s house three doors down and then returned, only to find the group still arguing.

As she started walking back towards her friend’s home, Bell hit her from behind.

“He bashed the s*** out of me,” she said.

The court was told Bell had ripped the clothes off the mother-of-two, pummelling her while she lay naked on the street.

He then allegedly got into a car and “went to run me over” the woman said, before a neighbour appeared and stopped him.

The mother was admitted to hospital with a ruptured spleen and kidneys and fractures to her collar bone and ribs.

While she was in hospital, her father tried to collect the baby from a friend’s house.

But when he arrived at the hospital to see her the next morning, he told her the baby was missing.

That morning, police told her the child was being taken to Karratha Hospital.

As the woman, her father and older son were about to leave for Karratha, she was again visited by police.

“I knew from their faces when they got out of the car ... then they said it, that he had passed away,” she said.

During her opening address, prosecutor Amanda Forrester said the injuries to the child could only have been intentional.

“There could not have been any other intent but to kill,” Ms Forrester said.

“If he had not intended to kill, he intended to cause harm.”

Bell’s counsel did not make an opening address to Justice John McKechnie in the judge-only trial, which continues this week.

Originally published as ‘Baby bashed, burnt, raped’ — court