Relatives of a three-year-old allegedly murdered by a Wolverhampton couple wept in the public gallery as some of his injuries were outlined to a jury.

An ambulance crew took Ryan Lovell-Hancox to New Cross Hospital where he was carried straight into the resuscitation unit, the city’s crown court heard.

The call had been upgraded to life-threatening because Ryan had stopped breathing unaided, said paramedic Richard Holt, who added: “There was a mixture of old and new injuries on his body.”

Ryan registered the lowest possible score on a test of consciousness and was recorded as completely unresponsive, said Dr Joanne Fedee, the specialist paediatric registrar who took control of the boy’s treatment.

His temperature was very low and he had bruising to the left side of his face, the right of the chin, the forehead and both arms and legs, she said.

The doctor continued: “The ambulance crew had been told that the child had fallen in the bath. The injuries did not fit that history.”

Charge nurse Jonathan Hales, from the hospital’s accident and emergency department, said: “There were finger-type bruising and scratching abrasions to the neck of Ryan, as if someone had grabbed him round the neck.

“I came to the conclusion that this may be an indication of non-accidental injury and a decision was made to call the police.”Ryan had been taken by ambulance from the home of Kayley Boleyn, now 19, and Christopher Taylor, now 25, in Slim Avenue, Bradley, at around 10.30pm on December 22, 2008. The jury has been told that the child had suffered a serious head injury.

At 3am the following morning, Ryan was transferred to Birmingham Children’s Hospital where he died following a cardiac arrest on Christmas Eve.

Boleyn had travelled with him in the ambulance from Slim Avenue, and New Cross staff nurse Heather O’Neill yesterday told the jury: “She was extremely agitated, quite nervous, shaky and very tearful.

Boleyn and Taylor had been looking after Ryan at the bedsit where they lived for around three weeks before tragedy struck, after she had been given the child to care for by his single mother who was having trouble coping, the court has heard.

Boleyn and Taylor both deny murder and child cruelty.

Taylor further denies causing or allowing the death of a child. Boleyn admits allowin