A man accused of murdering a toddler didn't ring 999 until prompted by a neighbour then went for a cigarette, a court heard.
Jonathan Simpson allegedly inflicted multiple injuries including a "catastrophic brain injury" to 22-month-old Jacob Marshall.
Emma Marshall said her boyfriend offered to mind her little boy, while she went to the hairdressers, on Friday, July 12, 2019.
Neighbour Stephen Forster told Liverpool Crown Court he returned to his home in Belsford Way, Speke, after picking up his granddaughter from school.
The witness said he was reversing his car onto his drive, at around 3.45pm, when Simpson ran over and asked: "Can you do CPR?"
He said he answered "no" and asked "what's wrong?", to which Simpson replied: "The baby has fell and I don't know whether he's breathing or not."
Under questioning by John Benson, QC, prosecuting, Mr Forster said he told his granddaughter to go to another neighbour's house.
The granddad said he then went into Miss Marshall's home and found Jacob lying on a carpet on the kitchen floor, with Simpson kneeling next to him.
Mr Forster said Jacob looked "asleep", lying on his back with his arms by his sides, legs bent, one eye closed and the other slightly open.
He said he asked Simpson "is he okay, is he breathing?" and he replied "I don't know mate, I can't tell" so he checked and found Jacob's chest was moving and he was breathing "slightly".
Mr Forster said he spotted a "massive lump", "like a cone" and purple in colour, on the right side of the child's forehead, which was probably "an inch" wide, 1.5cm high and a "terrible bruise".
He said he couldn't get any response from Jacob, "not even a blink", and "it was blatantly obvious it was a terrible injury".
Mr Forster said he was "seeing to the baby" but after a couple of minutes looked up and saw Simpson standing at the other end of the kitchen.
He said: "I said to him 'how long is the ambulance going to be?' and he said 'oh I haven't rung one yet'.
"I said 'why haven't you rung an ambulance?' and he said 'I will do it now'."
Mr Forster said Simpson rang 999 and started giving the operator information.
He said: "He was toning it down when he was repeating it. I said 'he's slightly breathing' and he said 'he's okay, he's breathing'.
"I said 'tell them he's got a really bad head injury' and he was like 'he's bumped his head'. There was like a resistance to what I was saying and how I was saying it, to play it down.
"He then said to me he's fell off the back of his couch and bumped his head on the radiator in the living room. And I said 'well why is he in the kitchen then?'"
Mr Forster explained Miss Marshall had a "low" radiator in her living room, like in his own home.
He said: "The couch is only that much higher than it, so it's the height of the baby he's fell from he's told me, which considering the injuries, it was like, there's something not right here, straight away."
Mr Forster said he concentrated on Jacob, but when he looked up again, the phone Simpson had been using was on the kitchen worktop.
He said: "He put the phone down there. I said 'how long are they going to be?' and then I realised he wasn't there.
"He had gone into the back garden to have a cigarette, so I shouted him 'come back in, I need you to speak to them on the phone and find out how long the ambulance is going to be'.
"He said 'I was just having a ciggy because of my nerves'. I said 'you can't leave the phone, you don't know what they're asking'.
"Then he said the phone had died and he needed to charge it in the living room, so he went into the living room with the phone and he was in there a while with it on charge."
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Mr Forster said his other neighbour Donna Bishop came in and they waited for paramedics, who after seeing Jacob's injuries decided "to just scoop him up there and then, like we've just got to get him to hospital."
The witness said he earlier gave his phone to his granddaughter, but thought he may have left it in Miss Marshall's house and asked Simpson to ring it, before he left with Jacob in the ambulance.
Mr Forster said he later texted Simpson to ask could he give his number to Christine Parkinson - Jacob's nan who he had known for 20 years - so he could speak to her about Jacob's condition.
Mr Forster said: "He text back in a way like I was asking how he was."
He added: "I was like 'no mate, I'm trying to get you to give Christine or the mum my number, so they can ring me... once again I got a text back, as if I was checking to see how he was doing, from his point of view."
Under cross examination, by Gordon Cole, QC, defending, Mr Forster said he remembered that after asking could he do CPR, Simpson said: "I think he's not breathing."
He said there were differences in how he worded things and how they were written in a police statement, taken that night.
Mr Forster said along with the large bump to Jacob's head, he saw a "scuff" to the left side of his forehead, a lump in an ear, blood inside his "swollen" lip, and a "coating" of blood around his nostrils "but none on his face at all".
He agreed that when Simpson rang 999, the boyfriend didn't know Jacob's date of birth, or the postcode.
Mr Forster said at one point he walked to the front door after hearing a neighbour's car and asked her to take his granddaughter, who was crying outside.
He said Simpson was still on the 999 call when he returned inside.
Mr Forster said: "I was over the baby talking to him, I was basically stroking him, saying 'come on mate, we will have you back on the bouncy castle and back on the trampoline', I was just basically trying to encourage some sort of breathing and some sort of reaction.
"I looked up during that period and he [Simpson] had gone out to the back garden for a smoke."
Mr Forster disagreed with Mr Cole that Simpson took the phone into the garden and said it was left by a cooker.
Mr Cole said: "Had he not taken the phone with him because the signal had gone?"
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Mr Forster replied: "No, it was there because I said to him 'where are you?' and he said 'I'm out here having a ciggy' and I said 'where's the phone?' and he said 'it's on there on the counter, I've left it on for you'."
He agreed that when he walked back in the kitchen, Simpson said: "He's always falling over, he's accident prone."
Simpson, of no fixed address, but from Winsford, Cheshire, denies murder and manslaughter.
(Proceeding)
