A BABYSITTER accused of killing a friend's two-year-old son has told a jury: "If I had done it, I would have admitted it."

Suzanne Holdsworth appeared in the witness box for the first time yesterday and spent three hours answering barristers' questions.

The 35-year-old supermarket checkout worker denied harming Kyle Fisher last July in the hours before he died in hospital of severe brain trauma.

Prosecutor Andrew Robertson, QC, accused Ms Holdsworth of injuring Kyle when she was looking after him on July 20 and again the following night while his mother Clare, 19, was out at a nightclub.

It was suggested Ms Holdsworth was tired and stressed following a series of night shifts and lost her temper with the boy and repeatedly hit him against the banisters in her home in Millpool Close, Hartlepool.

Ms Holdsworth, who has moved to Leeds since the incident, told Teesside Crown Court yesterday that she adored the youngster and denied earlier claims that she was bad-tempered and once held a knife to her own daughter's throat for getting into trouble at school.

During cross-examination, Mr Robertson asked her: "The simple fact of the matter is, Mrs Holdsworth, that you cannot bring yourself to own up to what you did to that little boy.

"That's the truth of the matter, isn't it?"

Ms Holdsworth, a mother of two, replied "no" and went on to add: "If I had done it, I would have admitted it, but I've done nothing."

Ms Holdsworth, who denies murder, said Kyle appeared to have a fit some time around 11.30pm as she watched television with him on July 21. She told the jury his head injuries from the previous night were caused when he fell out of bed.

Giving evidence, Ms Holdsworth said everything had been normal until Kyle's eyes started rolling and he went stiff.

She splashed water on his face and called 999 as well as Miss Fisher.

Kyle was transferred from the University Hospital of Hartlepool several hours later, but his life-support machine at Newcastle General Hospital was turned off two days later.

Experts have told the court that Kyle suffered severe injuries, consistent with a child being thrown from a car at 60mph.

Ms Holdsworth's teenage daughter and a relative who the defendant used to babysit also gave evidence yesterday, and dismissed claims she had a violent temper.

The trial continues.