A TODDLER stabbed to death by his drunken father desperately tried to fend off the blows which killed him, a Hampshire inquest heard.

Fourteen-month-old Nathan Tamar suffered deep wounds to his chest and abdomen plus cuts to his hands before he was left to bleed to death after his father Mokhtar, known as Robert, fell out with his estranged partner.

Tamar, 58, then turned the knife on himself, stabbing himself twice through the heart before collapsing on the floor just metres away from the bed where his baby son lay dying.

The inquest heard how Tamar was more than three times the drink-drive limit when he killed his son.

It was also revealed how just before the stabbings, he had attacked Nathan's mum Rachel Jones, 40, while he was carrying the toddler, punching her repeatedly, hitting her with a hammer and threatening to kill her with the knife.

Central Hampshire coroner Grahame Short recorded a verdict of unlawful killing on Nathan and suicide on Tamar.

In a statement released after the inquest, a devastated Miss Jones said the past few months had been a horrendous ordeal and that rebuilding her life would take a very long time.

She said: "I am relieved that the inquest is concluded and I hope that this will bring a little extra closure to the horrendous ordeal I have been suffering since my son's tragic death.

"I miss Nathan so much. He is still with me in so many ways.

"This Christmas will be hard and very emotional for me and the family but I hope with the new year coming and the continued support of my immediate family and friends I will be able to start rebuilding my life."

During the hearing Miss Jones recalled how on the afternoon of Thursday, August 31 she had gone round to the couple's former family home on Winchester's Highcliffe estate to drop Nathan off with his dad while she spent the evening with her own father.

She had met Tamar, who had spent time as a cook with the British Army's Parachute Regiment during the Falklands War, 12 years earlier when they both started working as chefs at Winchester College.

She described him as a generous, considerate and caring man and said they fell in love and soon started trying for a child.

Medical problems meant the couple had difficulties conceiving, but after specialist treatment at a London fertility clinic Miss Jones fell pregnant and in June last year Nathan was born.

Miss Jones said Tamar had become increasingly moody during their relationship, but that when Nathan arrived things had improved and he became a very good father.

But by 2006 things had changed. Giving evidence at the inquest yesterday through tears, Miss Jones said: "His moods, his emotional moods, changed towards me. It made our relationship very difficult. It was not so much arguments, he would just totally ignore me, not talk to me."

Tamar began drinking heavily and by July this year Miss Jones said she had decided to leave him.

She said: "I decided that it wasn't right for Nathan to be brought up in a relationship where two people supposedly loved each other actually angered each other. It was over. I suppose we were just staying together for Nathan."

Miss Jones moved back into a flat owned by Winchester College, while Tamar stayed in the family's Fivefields Close home.

However she said she made sure Nathan still saw a lot of his father, particularly as Tamar would often care for Nathan while Miss Jones was at work.

She said: "It was working, it was working for Nathan and that was our priority."

Talking about the day of the killing, Miss Jones said: "I got there at about 4.30pm and I said hello and he ignored me. I tried to speak to Robert again and he still wouldn't speak to me. Nathan saw his dad and just held out his arms as he would always do and Robert seemed pleased to see him."

She said she hadn't seen any sign he had been drinking and at first the couple watched their boy as he tried to walk around the garden using a babywalker.

But as she turned to go Tamar said: "I'm not happy about this."

Miss Jones said if he wasn't happy to look after Nathan that night she would take him back with her, but he just sneered at her.

She said she again then went to leave, adding: "Then he just punched me in the jaw. It was a terrible shock because he had never hit me before, then he grabbed Nathan off me.

"I said you bastard' and he just punched me in the head again. I was terrified and I just feared for my life because he then tried to attack me with a hammer.

"I managed to push past him down the path and he then threw the hammer at me, but it missed."

She added that all this while her baby was in Tamar's arms seeing exactly what his dad was trying to do to his mum.

Miss Jones said she escaped out into the road, but Tamar followed her and punched her several more times before going back into the house.

More abuse followed with Tamar coming in and out of the house before finally telling her You're dead Rachel' at which point he disappeared into the house before coming back without Nathan but with a knife.

Miss Jones said she fled into a neighbour's house to wait for the police to arrive.

The court heard how both Nathan and Tamar were rushed to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester where doctors battled unsuccessfully to revive them on beds just a few metres apart.

A post-mortem on Nathan found the youngster had suffered seven stab wounds to his chest and abdomen, from which he had died, along with small cuts to his hands.

Asked what had caused these pathologist Dr Hugh White, said: "When someone is attacked they instinctively put their hands up to protect themselves. These cuts were the baby trying to protect himself from his father."

He added, though, that the child would have died extremely rapidly from the injuries he sustained.

Meanwhile it was found that Tamar had six wounds to the chest and two to the abdomen. Two of the wounds had pierced his heart, while several others were described as "testers" - in which Tamar had stabbed himself gently to see whether he could actually plunge a knife into his own body.

Coroner Mr Short said alcohol had clearly played a major part in what had happened. He added: "It's absolutely clear that Nathan must have been terrified and it is understandable when someone you love is trying to do this to you. This was the actions of a drunk and violent man carrying out a threat to kill his defenceless son. I'm convinced this was a savage murder."