How a little boy's sad death has left a family in shreds

The judge sympathised with Wragg and made clear she believed he had acted on unselfish motives. But the case has sparked national debate on the quality of care for terminally-ill children and the right of carers to help their dying loved-ones to end their lives.

Here, Phil Mills looks back on a case that has capitivated the public for more than a year - and reveals startling evidence that the jury wasn't allowed to hear.

Cocaine was discovered in the house on the night little Jacob Wragg was smothered to death.

And the boy's mother Mary had taken amphetamines that night.

None of this information reached the ears of the jury.

Only now that the trial is over can The Argus reveal what was said during legal argument between counsel, held away from the jury because it could have unfairly influenced their decision.

What the jury was left in no doubt about was the vitriol Mary now felt for Wragg. During the trial, she was accused of trying to destroy any sympathy the jury might have had for him.

She painted Wragg as a poor husband, poor father and a heavy drinker who shied from meetings to discuss Jacob's future.

Wragg accepted much of the criticism but balked at her accusation that he had been embarrassed by Jacob.

Wragg never blamed Mary over Jacob's death but, the court heard, she "turned on him" when she gave her evidence.

Wragg's two trials, the first ending with a hung jury in February, drew packed audiences on the Press bench and public galleries of Lewes Crown Court.

Mary was seven months pregnant when Jacob was diagnosed with Hunter syndrome.

When their unborn son Henry was found to have the same disease, Mary underwent an "unbelievably" traumatic procedure to terminate the pregnancy.

She lost two more babies through miscarriages, one caused by testing the foetus for Hunter syndrome. The test proved negative and Mary would have delivered a healthy boy.

In interviews with police after the killing, she admitted there had been days when she hated Jacob and "wished it was all over" because of his condition.

But she flatly denied she had anything to do with killing Jacob and did not know Wragg was going to do it.

Mary's mother Gwendoline Richards told police when they broke the news of Jacob's death: "To be honest, to hear this was the best possible news I could have had."

She explained how Jacob's health had deteriorated in the two months before his death. He was deaf, his hands were like claws and he could only totter round on tip-toes.

Carers said Jacob was still enjoying life just days before his death. He had been staying at a hospice and had gone swimming, played football and visited a farm. Pauline Swindells, a nurse, said: "He would delight in giving people hugs."

But, she said, Jacob had reached the stage where a chest infection could have killed him at any time.

Carer Ricky Challenger said Mary spent much of her time coping with the children on her own.

A tape of the 999 call Wragg made to police confessing to the killing was played to the jury. Wragg met PC Lee Cook at the house with the words: "I've terminated my son's life ... so arrest me."

Pathologists testified that Jacob's respiratory system was so poor they could not be sure he had been smothered when they examined his body.

Wragg took the stand for the first time and told the court any future Jacob had would have been painful and undignified. He said his then wife Mary knew he was going to kill Jacob and encouraged him.

Wragg described in detail how he placed a pillow over Jacob's face and then laid down with the boy and stroked his head.

Wragg's brothers and sister told the court how poorly Jacob had been in the months leading to his death. Jacob, they said, was just a shell and looked like a "zombie".

Dr Nicholas Wright, consultant psychiatrist, said Wragg was suffering an abnormality of mind when he killed Jacob. The horrors of working as a bodyguard in Iraq, marriage problems and Jacob's deteriorating health, he said, all contributed to a recognised stress disorder.

Friends gave character references and said Wragg had been a good father and how much he loved Jacob.

In a testimony read to the jury, Dr Michael Matthews, consultant psychiatrist with West Sussex Health and Care NHS Trust, said there was a strong case for diminished responsibility. Wragg was frustrated over a continual battle to find residential care for Jacob and, at one point, Mary threatened to leave Jacob on the steps of social services.

But Dr Gillian Mezey, consultant forensic psychiatrist, said Wragg was acting as a rational problem-solver when he killed Jacob and was not suffering any mental impairment.

Andrew Wragg's mind was functioning entirely normally, he had a controlling personality and was acting not abnormally but in a cool, calculated way.

In the first trial, Wragg looked directly at Mary each time she moved to and from the witness box but Mary never appeared to look back at him.

Both agreed that the last few years of their marriage had been turbulent.

One one occasion, Wragg kicked and damaged his own front door in Henty Close, Worthing, when he went to pick up his healthy son George, now seven.

Wragg, cautioned by police over the incident, claimed his wife had slammed the door on him.

He left Mary on two occasions and, in 2000, lived with child care worker Shelley Ancell. That relationship ended after a year and Wragg met a new girlfriend.

Mary and Wragg later reconciled but just hours before Jacob's death, Mary asked him to leave.

News of their divorce, first mentioned by Mary during the trial, came as a surprise, even to Wragg.

It was the end of a marriage that began at Worthing Register Office in March, 1991, when Wragg was 25 and Mary was 29. She had been married once before.

Wragg was born in 1966 in Woolwich, south-east London, and he was still a young boy when the family moved to Southampton.

His father Bob was a Metropolitan policeman until he and Wragg's two uncles, also police officers, left the service to work in private security.

Bob Wragg recently retired when he was diagnosed with leukaemia. He lives with his wife Ann, a nurse who is just about to retire, in Goring, Worthing.

Wragg's two brothers and a sister all became high-achievers while he, described in court as an "action man", preferred an adventurous life in the Merchant Navy, Army and private security in bomb-torn Iraq.

His older brother Stephen started as a police cadet and is now in charge of airport security in Washington DC.

His younger brother Chris formerly worked for Sky TV and is a now a producer for CNN. Sister Tina is an equine veterinary nurse.

The family moved to Worthing when Wragg was 12 and he left school three years later with a handful of GCSEs.

The same year, he was fined £20 for using dud coins in a fruit machine.

Wragg's first job was working on a research ship sailing to the Antarctic and a year later he went to Gravesend Sea Training College where he qualified as a registered merchant seaman.

For the next five years, he served aboard a number of ships, including the QE2, before leaving the service and working for two years in private security.

It was while in the Merchant Navy that Wragg met Mary.

Educated at Davison High School for Girls in Worthing, Mary first worked as a temp and later moved into pub management for brewers Whitbreads.

Wragg and Mary were living with his parents and running a pub together when she suffered what was to be the first of three miscarriages.

Mary, who suffers from a serious kidney disorder, testified that their relationship was good but was strained by money difficulties.

After security work in London, Wragg joined the Army. He and Mary were walking in Brighton when he stepped into a recruitment office.

Wragg was doing his basic training in Catterick, North Yorkshire, when he and Mary married.

Wragg was posted to the 19th Mechanised Brigade and became attached to the SAS Signals in 1993, the year Jacob was born.

Mary was living in married quarters in Hereford and Wragg was training in Harrogate when they were told Jacob had Hunter syndrome and would not live beyond his early teens.

She was seven months pregnant at the time and tests showed the unborn child also carried the disease.

The couple endured the agony of watching the foetus being killed before Mary gave birth to their dead son, Henry.

The jury heard how the loss and trauma of that day had never left them.

Mary later lost two more babies through miscarriages, one caused by a test to determine whether the child carried Hunter syndrome. The test proved negative and the boy would have been healthy.

After Henry's termination, Wragg was given a compassionate discharge from the Army where he had reached the rank of Lance Corporal.

He left with an exemplary record apart from one disciplinary when he twice failed to sign in when he returned to barracks.

Mary, adopted with another girl, Anne, by Gwendoline Richards and her late husband, of West Street, Worthing, told the court how Wragg then borrowed £12,000 from her mother to buy a video business which later failed. The money was still owed.

By this time the marriage was faltering and Mary said Wragg was not giving her enough support and preferred going out and drinking with friends.

In 2003, Wragg borrowed another £2,600 from Mary's mother to train and buy equipment for bodyguard work in Iraq, a job that would help clear his debts.

The £2,600 was paid back to his mother-in-law on the day Jacob was smothered.