A MAN accused of murdering a newborn baby boy responded aggressively when neighbours enquired about the child in his arms, a court has heard.

Anthony Clark and Catherine Davies were spotted coming out of their Thornbank East, Bolton, block of flats by neighbours but a jury at Manchester Crown Court heard 35-year-old Clark was reluctant to talk about the baby, wrapped in a blue blanket, that he was holding.

Michelle Gibson, who had been sitting on a wall outside the flat with her partner, Stephen Jackson, told the court that she was interested in the baby, who appeared to be small and newborn.

“I have got children myself and people generally ask,” she said.

“I asked if he [Clark] had a baby lad. He said ‘yes, but the little bastard is not sleeping.’

“It took me aback because it wasn’t something I was expecting him to say.”

Miss Gibson added that Clark’s tone of voice was aggressive during the brief conversation.

“I asked him a polite question and he gave me a really nasty answer,” she said.

“He wasn’t interested, disengaged. He wasn’t bothered. That’s the way it came across to me at the time.”

Miss Gibson added that she also tried to speak to Davies.

“She just looked at me and came across as she was frightened of her partner – scared and didn’t want to speak. They just wanted to go,” she said.

She added that the couple with the baby headed towards Deane Road and returned half an hour later, with Davies holding a carrier bag but, again, they would not speak before going into the flat.

Neighbour Nathaniel Duberry, who lived in the flat immediately above Davies and Clark, told the jury how he would often hear banging and shouting coming from the couple’s home.

He added that Clark revealed to him that Catherine Davies was pregnant but said that he was to “keep it quiet and not tell anyone because they didn’t want anyone to know.”

He added: “They told me they had a kid before but it got taken away from them.”

Mr Duberry revealed that Clark later told him that the baby had been born.

“They had the kid but didn’t know what to do with it,” said Mr Duberry.

“He told me he went to do what he had to do.

“He had buried the baby – that was my impression.”

Mr Duberry said the revelation alarmed him.

“I couldn’t sleep that night,” he said.

Earlier the jury heard that Davies’ mother Marjorie Davies, who is known as Madge, lives at Meadowbank Nursing Home in Preston.

Her carer, Louise Todd, told the court that on September 24 last year Madge received a phone call from her daughter and became distressed.

Giving evidence, Ms Todd said that Madge revealed her daughter had told her she had given birth and the baby had died.

“Madge became very upset and she was telling me the contents of the call,” said Ms Todd.

“It related to a baby that had been born at home. Tony had been present and cut the cord. She described that there had been blood everywhere.”

Ms Todd added that she learned that the mother had not had any medical help throughout the pregnancy and when the baby arrived its head was a ‘funny shape’ and Davies described its poo as being a ‘funny colour’.

The court heard that Davies had told her mother that the baby would not feed and had died so they buried it in a shoe box because they could not afford a funeral.

The day following the revelation Ms Todd was so concerned that she contacted police.

When officers visited Clark and Davies’ flat the pair denied that a baby had been born, claiming that they had called her mother only to enquire about her welfare and ask to borrow money.

Clark and Davies, aged 25, both deny murder. Clark admits concealing a birth but Davies denies the offence.

The trial continues.