The mother of one of two babies allegedly suffocated by their father broke down in tears as she told how she realised her son was dead.

Michelle Johnstone, 32, from Dunscore, in Dumfries and Galloway, said she ran home from work after being phoned by a neighbour to find her two-month-old baby Kyle had stopped breathing.

When asked what condition Kyle was in, a sobbing Ms Johnstone said: "He was dead."

Her former husband, Ian Metcalfe, is on trial at the High Court in Edinburgh accused of murdering Kyle and another son, Dylan, by a different woman.

Metcalfe has denied the charges against him

Metcalfe, of Locharbriggs, Dumfries, has denied charges of assaulting, attempting to murder and murdering Kyle, as well the attempted murder and murder of Dylan.

He is also accused of twice attempting to murder a third child, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Ms Johnstone - who reverted to her maiden name after divorcing Metcalfe - said there was one incident with Kyle just before Christmas 1987.

She said she came home to their bedsit in Annan from a from a trip to Gretna market with her mother, Maree, to find Kyle lying motionless.

Ms Johnstone said: "My mum went over to see Kyle and I just remember her shouting and starting to panic.

"She was saying: 'It doesn't look right'.

"She picked him up and started trying to get him to breathe. She was blowing in his mouth.

I asked him what was wrong and I think he said he was just feeding him and he didn't know what went wrong

Michelle Johnstone

"I was screaming to my mum to give him to me and she started pacing the floor and telling somebody to get an ambulance."

"He looked fair purple. He was covered in purple spots, tiny pinprick spots. His eyes were rolling and he was quite limp."

Ms Johnstone said she also noticed a bruise under the baby's eyes.

She said Kyle was breathing again by the time an ambulance arrived to take him to hospital, where he was kept overnight before returning home.

Asked what her ex-husband's response had been, she said: "He didn't do anything. I asked him what was wrong and I think he said he was just feeding him and he didn't know what went wrong."

Michelle Johnstone rushed home to her son

Kyle died a month later, shortly after the family moved from their bedsit in Nursery Place to a flat in Waterfoot Road, Annan.

Ms Johnstone said when she got the call from a neighbour she arrived home to find an ambulance outside her neighbour's house and an ambulance crew inside.

Advocate-depute Edward Targowski QC, prosecuting, asked: "Did you see Kyle?" She replied: "Yes."

Mr Targowski then asked: "What condition was he in?" She sobbed: "He was dead."

A post-mortem examination later concluded Kyle died of cot death and the couple attended clinics to help them recognise the symptoms.

Ms Johnstone said Metcalfe told her the child appeared not to be breathing when he took him out of the pram and he had gone to the neighbour's house to raise the alarm, as there was no telephone in their flat.

Taken to a clinic

Of Kyle's death, she said: "He was upset and I just couldn't believe it."

Cross-examined by Donald Findlay QC, representing Metcalfe, Ms Johnstone said she and her former husband - who were still in their teens when Kyle was born - were both inexperienced parents.

She also said Kyle was taken to a clinic before he died because he was vomiting more than usual.

When re-examined by Mr Targowski, she said Metcalfe was more interested in television than looking after his child.

She said: "He didn't like him making a noise when the telly was on."

The couple had shared a flat in Annan

During her evidence Ms Johnstone's mother, said that she had noticed Kyle wheezing when she visited her daughter a few days before the baby died.

She said: "I was feeling uneasy because when he was breathing he was wheezy. My daughter said she was taking him to the clinic the next day."

Natalie Dalgleish, a cousin of Ms Johnstone, said she called at the Metcalfes' flat on the day Kyle died.

She said the door to the flat was locked, but when she knocked Metcalfe came to the door and said something was wrong with his son.

Miss Dalgleish: "He was frantic. I don't think he was crying, he was just panicked."

She said: "I tried to resuscitate him, I held his head back and blew into his mouth."

The trial continues.