A FATHER accused of trying to poison his wife with a cocktail of paracetamol tablets in milk has secured a court ruling in a bid to be reunited with his toddler son.

The father’s case reached London’s Appeal Court as he challenged a judge’s ruling that he gave his wife “a powerful dose of medication with the intention of killing her or causing serious harm”.

The judge, at Dewsbury County Court, found the father had probably crushed up a mass of tablets in a milky drink, with a pestle and mortar, which he then slipped his wife.

He reached his November 2007 decision in a preliminary fact-finding exercise in the context of the father’s civil court bid for contact with his young son, who is now cared for exclusively by the mother.

In order for future contact to be possible the father must first rebut the accusation that he tried to poison his wife. He was previously tried and acquitted of attempted murder after a criminal trial.

Lord Justice Wall, hearing the case at the Appeal Court, said the county court hearing was effectively “a case of attempted murder being tried without a jury”.

Clive Heaton, the father’s QC, said the Dewsbury ruling was flawed since it was based on forensic evidence “that went nowhere”.

Although it was clear the mother had ingested an overdose of paracetamol, there was no evidence to support the judge’s findings that her husband had crushed up the tablets and given them to her in a milk drink.

There was also significant doubt over her credibility, he added, and important evidence of her deliberately taking an overdose on a previous occasion.

After a short hearing, Lord Justice Thorpe, sitting with Lord Justice Wall and Lord Justice Stanley Burton, allowed the father’s appeal against the County Court ruling.

The issue of whether or not he tried to poison his wife will now be retried before a different judge at Leeds Crown Court.