A father cleared of killing his baby son says it was only his determination to prove his innocence that prevented him from ending his own life.

Craig Beattie, 34, now faces rebuilding his shattered life after a jury’s not guilty verdict brought an end to what he says has been a four and a half year “nightmare”.

In that time, as medical experts struggled to discover why his son Kye Kerr died, he has endured abuse from strangers in the street, three violent attacks from thugs who assumed he was guilty and the ordeal of a 10-day trial.

Yet even now, after he was reunited with his family in Carlisle, Mr Beattie’s thoughts are on his son.

Asked what was the worst part of his ordeal, he answered without hesitation.

“Losing Kye,” he said.

Craig Beattie’s future hung in the balance this week as a jury of 10 women and two men deliberated over the tragedy that has dominated his life since July 11, 2011.

That was the day when Mr Beattie, a former chef, discovered Kye’s lifeless body in his Moses basket at the home in Meadow View, Harraby, where the young family were living.

Medics at The Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle desperately tried to revive the baby but they failed.

It was only after his death, when a post-mortem revealed that Kye had sustained a fractured skull, that the death became suspicious and a major investigation began.

As he waited for his trial, Mr Beattie – now the ex-partner of his son’s mother Jodie Kerr, 26 – realised that the unproven charge he faced was enough for some people intent on exacting vigilante style “justice”.

He was attacked three times, on one occasion having his front teeth knocked out.

After hearing the evidence - much of it from highly qualified medical experts - the jury took fewer than six hours to reach their not guilty verdict.

As he sat in the dock, Mr Beattie was overcome by emotion – his body shuddering with emotion as he took in the realisation that he had been cleared of killing his son.

In an exclusive interview, he told The Cumberland News about his ordeal.

“It’s been hell,” he said. “When Kye died, my whole world fell apart. It was like somebody had ripped my heart away. Being a father was everything to me.

“Yes, I’m relieved that they’ve said I’m innocent but at the end of the day my boy is dead; and I still don’t know how he died.”

Recalling his feelings when Kye was born six weeks prematurely, Mr Beattie said that his thoughts at that time were emphatically positive. “It was brilliant,” he said.

“I was over the moon.

“It meant everything to me. Kye was in the special care baby unit for four weeks and two days and then we were told he could come home.

“He was putting on weight. Jodie and I were a couple and we were happy.”

Just a few hours after Kye died, Mr Beattie gave a statement to a woman police officer, describing the last hours that he spent with his son.

How he had fed and winded Kye and at one point cradled him over his shoulder as he sat on the sofa in the living room of their home.

Then, as he was still struggling with the grief of losing Kye, came the bombshell of the police charging him with his son’s manslaughter.

In a state of shock, he struggled -both then and now -to understand why, two years after the tragedy, he had fallen under suspicion.

He said: “It was a nightmare. I couldn’t think of anything that happened while I was looking after him that explained what happened.”

To add to his distress, as the news of the manslaughter charge became public, Mr Beattie became a target for yobs who lacked the judgement to realise that people who are charged are sometimes innocent.

Such was the animosity he faced that he had to flee from Carlisle, moving to an address in Workington.

Shortly after he arrived, his home was besieged by a mob, who gathered outside his window baying for his blood.

“They wanted to kill me,” said Mr Beattie. He had to seek refuge with the police.

He was given a new bail address in Lancashire but he spent the last months before the trial in a Liverpool prison because he breached a condition of his bail by staying out beyond his curfew.

As he visited his family in Carlisle this week, Mr Beattie had the appearance of a broken man, his front teeth still shattered, his body slumped and exhausted.

Asked whether he considered ending it all, he replied: “I did go through stages where that thought came into my mind – killing myself, when I was at rock bottom.”

So what stopped him from doing that? He answered: “I didn’t do anything because I knew I was innocent. I needed to prove it.”

He was sustained also by the support of his family - his parents Connie Adams, his stepfather Gordon Adams, also 62, and his father Alan Beattie, 65, as well as his sister and his stepbrothers and stepsisters.

“They’ve been brilliant,” he said. “They’ve been there for me 100 per cent.”

Even now, Mr Beattie is still in shock and struggling to come to terms with everything that has happened.

Of his old life, all that remains are a few personal possessions which are now crammed into a shoebox and of these the most precious is a blurred photo - his only photo - of his son Kye.

A son whose grave he has not until now been able to visit because a bail condition barred his return to Carlisle.

He added: “I want to move on and get on with my life. But for me the worst thing is knowing that my boy died.

“I still don’t know why and I’ll probably never know.”