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Mum 'wanted to kill' son, 3, because he 'looked like his father'

Mum 'wanted to kill' son, 3, because he looked like his father

A woman accused of murdering her three-year-old son considered "pummelling" the little boy with a baseball bat and killing him because he looked like his father, a court has heard.

The woman and the boy's stepfather, both who cannot be named, are accused of murdering the boy, known as Timothy, in August 2014 in NSW’s central west.

Timothy’s mother had told a triple-0 operator that her son was tripped in a NSW park by a rope tied to the family’s two dogs.

The little boy died three days after paramedics attended his house, having never regained consciousness.

The pair later admitted Timothy was repeatedly assaulted during the seven weeks he lived with them in Oberon, near Bathurst, the Supreme Court heard on Monday.

Crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen SC said the boy's mother slammed his head in a sliding wardrobe door and shook him because he ate salt, while his stepfather put him naked in a portable icebox and forced the lid shut.

"I wanted to kill him," Timothy's mother allegedly said in a police interview.

"I did love that boy ... but there was part of me that hated him because he looked like his father."

The court heard Timothy had been living happily with his grandparents and other family members before his mother asked for him back.

Timothy's adult brother is expected to tell the jury he saw duct tape being placed over the boy's eyes and was also used to keep a ball in his mouth.

He is also expected to say the boy let out the loudest scream he'd ever heard from him while he was in the ice-cooled container.

"I'm going to pummel his (Timothy's) head in with a baseball bat," Ms Cuneen said the brother recalls his mother saying.

Defence barrister Eric Wilson SC said the mother had always maintained the fatal injury happened at the park, despite her admissions of abuse.

He urged the jury to put their emotions aside, saying there was some medical evidence the child's injuries, which included haemorrhaging around the spinal cord, could have been the result of the trip and fall.

The trial continues.