Daughter of man accused of murdering grandson 'warned of behaviour'

The mother of a nine-year-old boy allegedly drowned in the bath by his grandfather has told a jury how she warned her father would "do something to get himself put in somewhere".

Joanne Greene, 38, was giving evidence at the trial of Stewart Greene, who is accused of murdering his grandson Alex Robinson two days before Christmas last year.

Ms Greene was in tears in the witness box at Lincoln Crown Court as she watched herself on a police video describe her desperate attempts to revive her son.

On the recording, watched by the jury, she explained how she returned to her home in Pennell Street, Lincoln, after buying the Christmas turkey at Tesco.

She said her father, now 65, calmly told her: "I've drowned Alex in the bath."

Ms Greene told the police officer interviewing her how she did not believe him at first but then desperately began looking for her son before finding him in the bath.

The jury watched as Ms Greene became deeply upset on the video as she tried to explain to the officer the scene in her bathroom.

She watched herself from the witness box, visibly upset.

Giving live evidence in court, Ms Greene then described how her father had a history of depression-type illness and had been admitted to a mental health unit earlier in the year.

She explained how, a month before Alex's death, she had pleaded with staff at a unit not to let him out.

She said this was because he did not like living independently, outside of residential centres, and had attacked people before, including trying to strangle a doctor, in attempts to stay as an inpatient.

Asked what she told the staff, she said: "If you let him out he's going to do something.

"He's done it before. He's attacked a doctor. He's had a knife to an old woman."

She said: "He will do something to get himself put in somewhere.

"I'm telling you now, if he does something I'm going to go ballistic. You can't let him out."

Michael Evans QC, prosecuting, said the record of the conversation noted that she was worried her father would "up the ante", but she said could not remember using that phrase.

Greene, of Danes Court, Grimoldby, Lincolnshire, denies one count of murder.