The idea that a couple sadistically beat up their four-year-old adoptive son was nonsense, a court heard.

Simon and Michelle McWilliam reported the first signs of the boy harming himself and all subsequent injuries, and they sought advice from professionals, Lewes Crown Court heard yesterday.

Lord Thomas asked the jury whether they believed the couple covered up their cruelty and made up the self-abuse story.

He said: "I suggest to you it is rubbish."

Lord Thomas, in his closing speech for Simon McWilliam, said even the boy, John Smith, supported the McWilliams' story by telling social workers and teachers he had hurt himself.

Lord Thomas said it would have been "reckless beyond belief" for a child beater to contact social workers after each incident.

John died from a brain haemorrhage and had 54 injuries including three adult bite marks on his body. The couple, of Gardner Road, Fishersgate, Southwick, deny cruelty.

Lord Thomas said John was a disturbed boy, troubled by being moved from "pillar to post" and from different sets of guardians.

None of the supporting professionals thought his injuries were signs of abuse right up to the point of his death and they had praised the way the McWilliams coped with John's problems, he said.

The prosecution suggested the couple had tried to sever John's penis with scissors, burnt his face by rubbing it on carpet and repeatedly hit him, he said.

He said the McWilliams informed professionals after each incident, making a "nonsense" of the Crown's argument.

Evidence given about bite marks on John's body was inconclusive, he said.

John was with family and friends in the week before his death so the jury could not ascribe anything certain from the marks.

The judge is expected to continue summing up today.