A DEVASTATED father fell asleep after feeding his ten-week-old son and woke to find the child lying underneath him dead.

Gary Charlton remembered giving his son, Craig, an early-morning feed on the sofa at his home, with the youngster on his chest.

The next thing the 38-year-old, of Emerald Walk, Chilton, County Durham, remembered was lying face down with his son underneath him.

Yesterday, a coroner's court, sitting at Bishop Auckland Magistrates' Court, heard that the baby was taken to Bishop Auckland General Hospital, but was pronounced dead, following the incident on Sunday, June 22, last year.

A police investigation was launched and Mr Charlton was arrested and charged.

But when he appeared in court in August, the judge directed that the case should be allowed to lie on file.

At yesterday's inquest into Craig's death, Mr Charlton declined to answer any questions by Coroner Andrew Tweddle, and was visibly upset during the proceedings.

A statement was read out to the court that said he had been out drinking on the Saturday evening.

He returned home and, in the early hours, Craig woke up to be fed.

Mr Charlton took the youngster downstairs and put him on his chest. The last thing he remembered was finding himself face down with his son underneath him, the inquest was told.

Pathologist Nigel Cooper, who carried out a post-mortem examination on the baby, said he found evidence of bacteria in the body that could cause septicaemia, but said he could find no positive proof that it had caused Craig damage.

He told the coroner there were three possible causes of death: sudden infant death syndrome, an infection or suffocation, but he said he was unable to give an exact cause.

Mr Cooper said the death was least likely to have been caused by the syndrome and, if it had not been for the history of a possible suffocation, he would have given the cause of death as the infection.

He added that it was nearly impossible to diagnose suffocation as the cause of death in a baby from a post-mortem examination.

Mr Tweddle said: "I do not know whether it was a natural cause of death or an unnatural cause of death."

He recorded an open verdict.