Fatal injuries to a four-year-boy were an "inconvenience" to his adoptive father, a court heard.

John Smith was in the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, with a severe head injury, the day before his death.

Social worker Shirley Peters said the adoptive father Simon McWilliam flew into a tirade, blaming social services for John's injuries and insisting he had warned them John harmed himself.

McWilliam, still furious, said he had lost a three-month-old child from his first marriage and asked Mrs Peters if she was aware he was at the end of a university course.

He said he had worked so hard and was only two weeks away from completing it.

Mrs Peters said McWilliam said how inconvenient it was and the timing was awful.

McWilliam and his wife Michelle, of Gardner Road, Fishersgate, Southwick, deny cruelty to the boy.

Yesterday, the McWilliams' neighbour, Robin Whitfield, told Lewes Crown Court how he saw a paramedic carry John, limp in his arms, from the McWilliams' home to an ambulance on 23 December, 1999.

Mr Whitfield was talking to another neighbour when Simon McWilliam arrived with shopping after the ambulance had driven away. They told him the boy had gone to hospital.

Mr Whitfield said McWilliam replied: "Oh no, not f------ John. Some f------ Christmas this is going to be."

Michelle McWilliam wept in the dock as a tape was played of the 999 call she made after finding John unconscious in bed.

She told the operator how she had tried and failed to wake John that morning and how he had been self-harming.

During a second 999 call, Mrs McWilliam could be heard weeping as she told how John had banged his head, bitten himself and had attacked her when he got upset.

Ambulance personnel found Mrs McWilliam kneeling by the unconscious boy when they arrived at the house.

Paramedic Emma Rutland told the court John was pale and there were traces of vomit around his mouth.

She said there was bruising to both sides of his face and all over his head.

Ambulance technician Alison Brennan-Wright said Mrs McWilliam told her that John would throw himself down stairs, hit his chin on a wash basin, head butt radiators and bite his ankles.

Paramedic Christopher Williams said he removed John's pyjama top.

He said: "There was extensive bruising to his body, face, cheeks, forehead, neck, shoulders and upper arms."

Hospital sister Catherine Dry said Simon McWilliam told her at the hospital that John was a "very disturbed little boy".

She said he was very distressed by the boy's behaviour and told her he wanted a fit, healthy child and did not believe he had one.

Before John was transferred to a London hospital where he died on Christmas Eve, doctors withdrew drugs to see if he would respond, the court heard.

Ms Dry said McWilliam told her he did not know why they were bothering because the boy was "already dead".

Ms Dry said when she saw the boy for the first time she was shocked.

She said: "His facial bruising and swelling was vast."

The case continues.