Review following death of toddler

Brandon Muir died from a ruptured intestine following an assault by Robert Cunningham, 23, at the Dundee flat he shared with the toddler's mother Heather Boyd.

A jury at the High Court in Glasgow found Cunningham guilty of culpable homicide after a trial which heard from more than 50 witnesses.

During evidence it emerged that the social work department had been in contact with Boyd before her son's death and a review of child protection services in the city is now under way. The court heard Cunningham had been living with Boyd and her two children for 18 days before Brandon's death on March 16 last year.

Giving evidence, Boyd's mother Veronica said she called social services on February 25 and told them she and her husband were "not happy about the relationship Heather had got herself into".

Cunningham was convicted of seizing Brandon, aged 23 months, making him stand against a wall or other surface, and applying pressure to his abdomen "by means unknown" the day before he died.

He told the jury that he got on "brilliantly" with the youngster but smacked him on the hand and told him to stand by a wall as punishment for climbing on to a window sill at the Balunie Crescent flat.

Charges that Boyd ill-treated Brandon and that she killed him by failing to get him medical help following the assault were dropped last week. Cunningham was also acquitted of ill-treating Brandon and another young child in the six months before he died.

Alan Baird, director of social work at Dundee City Council, said Brandon's death followed "a particularly tragic set of events" and any improvements put forward by the independent review would be fully implemented.

The investigation into the circumstances leading to Brandon's death has been commissioned by the Dundee Children and Young Persons Protection Committee, headed by former Fife Constabulary chief constable Peter Wilson.