Jurors have been urged to clear a triple murder suspect accused of “awful allegations” concerning the killing of two of his children and his new girlfriend.

Jordan Monaghan, 30, is accused of imposed airway obstruction, or smothering, two of his own children, Ruby, aged 24 days, on New Year’s Day 2013, and his son, Logan, aged 21 months, eight months later, while living with the children’s mother, Laura Gray, 28.

He is also accused of murdering his new partner, Evie Adams, 23, six years later on October, 24, 2019, by giving her a cocktail of five prescription drugs including tramadol and diazepam.

Monaghan, a digger driver, denies all charges.

During the nine-week trial it is alleged by the prosecution that Monaghan killed the children when his then partner, Miss Gray, told him the relationship was over, and killed Miss Adams when she also threatened to dump him.

Ben Myers QC, defending, told the jury: “These are awful allegations and you would not be human if you were not upset and maybe angry at the thought of what is alleged in this case.

“The prosecution have a theory, a pattern, they rely upon very heavily.

“In a time of tension in the relationship, Mr Monaghan decides to kill a child.”

But Mr Myers said this did not apply in the death of Ruby, as he suggested the couple’s relationship at that time was not at breaking point.

And he said a dozen medical experts could not say definitively what caused the collapses and deaths of the children, and concluded the cause of their deaths was “unascertained”.

Mr Myers said, in fact, there was an obvious and natural cause of death in the case of Ruby, in that she had been diagnosed with acute bronchitis pneumonia.

Monaghan is alleged to have smothered Logan in a cubicle at a local swimming pool, out of sight, where he could be alone with the child.

But the allegation of the murder of Logan was built on “very tenuous stuff” Mr Myers told the jury.

A public swimming baths, on a rainy summer afternoon, was not a good choice for a private place to be with his child, Mr Myers said.

And he said the “really unsatisfactory aspect of this case” related to the absence of any physical evidence of smothering.

Mr Myers said it is one thing to say a baby could not do something if being suffocated, but a toddler would struggle and resist.

“Anyone who has had to get a toddler into a car seat knows what that means,” he added.

Monaghan is alleged to have murdered Evie Adams with an overdose of tramadol and diazepam, prescription drugs he admitted he bought illegally but told the jury he did so for himself, not to give to his partner.

Mr Myers suggested that while the defendant had admitted lying, behaved insensitively and criminally by buying prescription drugs illegally, it was important to be fair, even to people who are “not universally appealing”.

Mr Myers suggested there was ample evidence Evie Adams may have taken her own life.

She had suffered “chronic abuse” before being fostered at the age of 12, which left her with a “troubled” mental state, and had a recorded history of suicidal thoughts, he said.

The defendant, of Hazel Close, Blackburn, Lancashire, denies three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and two counts of cruelty to a third child, who cannot be identified, all between January 1, 2013 and October 24, 2019.

The trial was adjourned until Wednesday.