The trial is taking place at the High Court in Edinburgh

A child minder has gone on trial at the High Court in Edinburgh accused of murdering a one-year-old boy in her care.

Tina McLeod, 40, has denied inflicting fatal injuries on Alex Graham by shaking him and striking his head on a blunt object or surface at her home in the city.

The High Court was told how the Graham family received Mrs McLeod's name from Edinburgh City Council's list of registered child minders.

Kirstie Graham, 35, said Alex was the sort of baby that old ladies would "coo over" for hours.

When I left him that day he was as he always was, smiling, happy and full of energy Kirstie Graham

She described how she dropped him off at the child minder's home in the Blackhall area of the capital on 26 July 2001.

Less than three hours later she received a phone call at work telling her that her son was in the Royal Hospital for Sick Children on a life support machine.

Mrs Graham said: "I asked her (Mrs McLeod) what had happened and she said Alex had an accident, she said she'd been out of the room and she thought Alex had fallen off the settee, and he wasn't breathing.

Ambulance called

"She said she tried to get him to breathe, she'd called her son through and he'd called the ambulance.

"She said she was really sorry."

Mrs Graham added: "My understanding was that he effectively died before he went into the ambulance and he was kept on a life support machine but there was no brain activity.

"When I left him that day he was as he always was, smiling, happy and full of energy."

The baby's father Stephen Graham, 37, told the court he last saw Alex when they had breakfast together on the morning he died.

He alleged his son had previously returned from Mrs McLeod's house with marks and bruises.