A woman who murdered the 13-month-old baby she had planned to adopt tried to lie through a police interview before resorting to “no comment” answers.
Baby Leiland-James Corkill died from catastrophic injuries to his brain, spine and eyes after he was shaken violently by foster mum Laura Castle.
Castle was convicted after trial of murdering the young boy after trying to convince a jury that she had not intended to inflict fatal injuries on the boy.
Instead, she said she had accidentally shook him too much in frustration with his crying.
His head injury was caused by a fall from a couch, she said.
The 38-year-old was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 18 years at Preston Crown Court this week.
Footage from her interviews with detectives however shows her attempts to avoid blame.
But in the stomach-churning footage as she realises she can't find answers to deflect from her evil crime and so resorts to answering "no comment" on multiple occasions in a later sit-down discussion with officers.
Castle had lied to social workers, claiming she did not believe in using physical chastisement and promising to continue using the name given to Leiland-James by his mum.
Within weeks, Castle had started referring to the baby as simply James - and in cruel text messages sent to her husband Scott, 34, she called him "top t**t", "devil's spawn" and "knobhead".
On January 6, 2021, she shook Leiland-James violently, causing catastrophic injuries to his brain, spine and eyes.
Emergency services were called to the family home in Barrow-in-Furness and the baby was taken to Alder Hey Children's Hospital, but never regained consciousness.
Laura Castle maintained the death was a tragic accident until the day the jury was sworn in last month for her trial at Preston Crown Court.
She entered a plea of guilty to manslaughter and went on to say that she had shaken Leiland-James because he would not stop crying.
Castle said his head hit the armrest of the sofa before he fell off her knee onto the floor.
However, medical experts told the court that the degree of force required to cause his injuries would have been "severe" and likely to be a combination of shaking and an impact with a solid surface.
Prosecutor Michael Brady QC said it was the Crown's case that Castle killed the boy as she lost her temper and suggested she smashed the back of his head against a piece of furniture.
Jurors convicted her of murder and a separate offence of child cruelty.
Her husband Scott Castle was acquitted of allowing Leiland-James's death and child cruelty.
Sentencing her to life imprisonment, Mr Justice Baker said it was "nothing less than a tragedy" that she did not return Leiland-James to the local authority.
He said: "Precisely what took place on the morning of January 6, 2021, may never be known, as even now I do not consider that you told the jury the full circumstances leading to the death of Leiland-James.
"I consider that your account significantly underplays the extent and degree of violence which you inflicted upon Leiland-James that morning, which of necessity must have involved either very severe or considerable impact and oscillation forces to have caused the internal injuries, whilst some of the external injuries were consistent with slapping, pinching and prodding."
He said she had committed a "significant abuse of trust" as a carer for a looked after child and had caused "dreadful emotional upset" to Leiland-James's birth mother and his previous foster parents.
The boy's biological mother, Laura Corkill, branded Castle a "monster" in a letter to the judge, while his previous foster mother Charlotte Day said she was "heartbroken" at learning of the abuse Leiland-James suffered.
David McLachlan QC, defending, said Castle was in the dock "alone and broken" and with "no support whatsoever". He said: "Her relationship with Scott Castle is likely to come to an end.
"She is isolated and ostracised in prison due to the verdict of the jury who found she had in fact murdered Leiland-James.
"Now she must pay the price of that act - an act which resulted in the death of a young baby who will remain an innocent party in these proceedings."
An independent review into the adoption process is due to report back in July.
