the manslaughter of her godson to set a standard which will protect other infants in Bermuda from child abuse.

Senior Crown counsel Brian Calhoun said the case against Tuzo was "about the strongest I can imagine being brought before a jury -- to be any stronger would require a videotape''.

The case is believed to be the first on the Island where a carer has been charged with manslaughter on the grounds of gross neglect of a child.

Mr. Calhoun said the Crown had proved that Tuzo was aware her boyfriend Jermaine Pearman was abusing five-month-old Saed Young, but had chosen to ignore it, resulting in the child inevitably suffering fatal injuries.

Pearman, 27, has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Saed on August 29 1997 and will be sentenced on November 1.

Tuzo, 20, is also charged with manslaughter because the Crown alleges she recklessly endangered the baby's life by failing to protect him from abuse.

Her lawyer Philip Perinchief urged the jury to clear Tuzo because she did not believe the injuries suffered by Saed were life-threatening or that Pearman was a danger to the child.

He said there was no evidence that his client saw or heard Pearman inflicting serious injury to the child and if she had, she would have removed the child.

Mr. Perinchief said Tuzo loved Saed and would have had to have undergone a "Jekyll and Hyde'' transformation to do nothing if she knew Pearman was abusing her godson.

Saed suffered bite marks to his face and ankle, bruising on the face and back, a broken collar bone and multiple fractures to his skull during the ten days Tuzo and Pearman were looking after him at Bob's Valley Lane, Sandys Parish in August 1997.

Mr. Calhoun said Tuzo had to make a choice between her love of Saed and her love of Pearman, and chose to allow the baby to suffer.

"She wanted both. She had a choice and that choice cost Saed Young his life.

That is as certain a piece of evidence before you as anything you will hear,'' he said.

Mr. Calhoun said Tuzo knew Pearman was abusing the child -- including shaking him in anger, grabbing him by the arm, pushing his head repeatedly into the pillow, and "play punching'' him -- from Sunday, the second day he was in their care.

"The Crown position is not only that she had to know of the circumstances, she did know,'' he said.

"What happened to Saed was the type of thing he was in danger right from the first day. Right from the outset, Tuzo should have removed this child from the danger, and as time went on, inevitably it escalated.

Babysitter's fate in hands of jury "Tuzo acknowledged she had no reason to believe it would not escalate, and it did escalate, to her knowledge.'' By the Wednesday or Thursday the child had cuts to his ear and eyebrow and his cheek had been bitten (although Tuzo denied she knew it was a bite), yet Tuzo did not tell the baby's mother Roshea Young or get medical help because she knew Saed would be taken away, he said.

"Isn't this reckless disregard for the child's health at this point? But it gets worse. By the weekend, another injury was obvious. Still the mother was not told.

"The second bite on the cheek was obvious, but still there was no medical assistance. By Sunday, we had moved to dehydration. Did deep down Ms Tuzo know the child was in big trouble? "The feedings she claims she gave the child can't be true if the child was so grossly dehydrated. It is getting worse and worse and worse and when the mother calls to get the child back on Sunday, Tuzo wants to keep the child for a few more days.

"Why? The only commonsense interpretation of that was that she was hoping the injuries might be sufficiently healed by then and it wouldn't be so obvious to anyone seeing them.

"She admitted that had she taken the baby to the doctor, the doctors would at least have to report it to Social Services and that would have caused difficulty for her boyfriend. Who lost out on that deal? Saed.'' Tuzo was within earshot of the child all day on August 26 when he sustained a fractured collar bone and multiple fatal fractures to his skull, yet said she never heard the baby crying.

Mr. Calhoun continued: "If you accept the evidence that the abuse started almost immediately, it got worse each day, it was the type of injury that sooner or later would lead to some kind of serious injury, and she had no reason to believe it would stop.

"If you accept that, hopefully you will accept that she had a reckless disregard for the child's health and safety.

"How much abuse can a five-and-a-half-month-old baby take without it being inevitable that the child was going to receive serious injury, which could, and ultimately did, lead to death? "This is an overwhelmingly strong case. It is inconceivable that Tuzo did not know what was going on. She admitted she knew what was going on but chose to do nothing.

"This is one of the strongest cases one can imagine being brought before a jury -- to be any stronger would require a videotape.

"What did Saed Young go through that week and did he go through it because of a reckless disregard for his safety by the very person his mother entrusted to protect? "If this evidence is not enough to prove this, I don't know what is. You will be setting the standards this community will be living by. If I represent everyone, including all those children, I would hope juries in Bermuda would never lose sight of that. What a jury does sets a standard for a long time and you will be setting a very important standard. You will be setting a standard where the rest of these children will live or die.'' Mr. Perinchief said Tuzo loved Saed and wanted to be his godmother.

He said to accept the prosecution case, the jury had to believe that "someone who shows that degree of love being transformed on August 26 from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde''.

Mr. Perinchief said Tuzo believed Saed was suffering from a worsening fever on August 26 and that there "was no impression whatsoever of fatal or serious injuries to this child''.

"We now know the reality was different, that young Saed was dying of fatal injuries not obvious to her,'' he said. "If she was labouring under that belief, could she be expected to rush off sooner than 5.30 p.m. when she became concerned that his fever had gone beyond her medical knowledge? "I cannot accept my client witnessed, heard or knew of any fatal injuries being inflicted on this child, but that is the inescapable conclusion of Dr.

Valerie Rao (the forensic scientist who is medical examiner of Dade County, Miami, Florida).

"If you accept that, you accept that Sharina Tuzo is a cold, callous person to watch the child she loved being harmed in this way by Jermaine Pearman and then not doing anything, because Dr. Rao's theory imputes knowledge of these fatal injuries to my client. The evidence isn't there to support that.'' He said if Tuzo was so callous, she would not put Ambosol gel on Saed's gums when he was teething and take him to a clinic for his shots some months earlier.

Mr. Perinchief said it had not been established when the swelling to the child's head became apparent and noted it was conceded that it might take a trained eye to spot the symptoms.

Urging the jury to clear Tuzo, he asked: "What is the standard of conduct that we can expect from an inexperienced 18-year-old baby-sitter with her first teething child and (is that) conduct reasonable under the circumstances?'' Chief Justice Austin Ward will begin summing up this morning.

COURTS CTS