A POLICE officer yesterday told a court of being hit by a “god awful smell” when he entered a house where a dead toddler lay in his cot.

PC Dillon Pooley, 33, was giving evidence at the trial of Kimberley Hainey, who is accused of murdering her baby son Declan.

He told the High Court in Glasgow that, together with a colleague, he was called to a house in Bruce Road, Gallowhill, Paisley, on March 30 last year after a dead child was found there.

The officer described the state of the toddler’s body as “horrendous.”

 He said that, when he got out of the police car at the property, he was met by Hainey’s mum, Elizabeth Rodden, who was “crying uncontrollably.”

The court heard that Mrs Rodden’s husband, John, and her sister were also at the house when the police arrived.

Advocate depute Andrew Stewart QC, prosecuting, asked PC Pooley: “Did you notice anything when you went in?”

He replied: “A god awful smell.”

The witness said he walked further into the flat and saw Declan’s body lying in a cot.

He told the court: “I noticed he had been dead for some time and his body was quite badly decomposed.”

The jury heard the house was in a state of disarray, with “stuff everywhere,” including soiled nappies and milk cartons.

Mr Stewart asked PC Pooley if he could see what Declan looked like.

He said the youngster’s skin was “blackened, badly decomposed, it was horrendous.”

The court also heard from paramedic Raymond Kelly, 51, who was called to the scene that day.

Mr Kelly said the first thing he noticed about the house was the smell.

He also described Declan as “badly decomposed.”

The court was told that, when undertakers came to take the toddler’s body away, they had to remove the mattress too.

The jury also heard that a number of letters dating as far back as July 2009 were found piled up behind the front door of the flat.

Hainey, 37, is accused of assaulting, willfully ill-treating and neglecting her son Declan over a 19-month period between September 2008 and March last year in Bruce Road, Paisley.

The Crown has charged Hainey with either murdering her son or, alternatively, of neglecting him by failing to provide medical care for him, whereby his physical and psychological development were impaired.

It is alleged that she left her son alone and unattended in the house for excessive periods of time, left him in wet and soiled nappies for excessive periods of time, caused him to be exposed to heroin and amphetamine, caused him to ingest these drugs and failed to provide medical aid and care for him.

The Crown also alleges that Hainey pretended Declan was alive in an attempt to defeat the ends of justice between July 2009 and March 2010.

Hainey is further accused of supplying heroin at a house in Lomond Avenue, Renfrew, on various occasions between December 2009 and March last year.

She is also charged with having heroin in her possession in Bruce Road between September 2008 and March 2010.

Hainey denies all the charges against her and the trial, before Lord Woolman, continues.