A wicked couple, who "cold-bloodedly" killed a little boy after rejecting him as suitable for adoption, are beginning five year jail sentences.

Wealthy Ian and Angela Gay were warned by social services that three-year-old Christian Blewitt had emotional problems due to early neglect and needed extra care.

But five weeks after Christian went to live with the Gays at their £500,000 luxury home in Greyfriars Drive, Bromsgrove, along with his younger brother and baby sister, they became disenchanted with him.

After a disruptive weekend, when Christian threw his dinner on the floor, he was force-fed four teaspoonfuls of salt as a punishment and "thumped down" roughly into a cot where he fell into a coma, Worcester Crown Court heard.

He died in hospital four days later on December 12, 2002.

A post mortem showed he had 11 areas of bruising inside his brain and had had a heart attack.

A jury convicted both Gays of manslaughter at the end of a seven week trial. They were cleared of murder and a third charge of child cruelty was discharged.

Mr Justice Pitchers told the cruel pair: "Christian was not a difficult child. But you decided to punish him by making him eat salt. It must have been four teaspoonfuls. You didn't know that would prove fatal but tragically it did.

"This was not long term neglect but a single episode committed, not by inadequate people, but by intelligent people, who must have made a deliberate choice in cold blood to subject him to this punishment. It was certainly a joint enterprise."

The judge said no blame could be attached to social services. But the Gays had given them the impression they could be proper carers.

"Anyone listening to this case must have been struck by the very little real understanding or sympathy you had for the needs of Christian," he went on.

The judge said the wife had returned to work while the boy lay stricken in hospital. Her approach was "entirely selfish".

Mr Gay's twisted idea that Christian wanted to break them was an extraordinary conclusion in the context of a baby boy.

The jury heard that Mrs Gay, 38, was unable to have children after surgery to correct a heart complaint.

Sandwell social services wanted to keep Christian and his siblings together and arranged for the Gays to have child care lessons.

But Mrs Gay never attended, blaming the pressures of her £200,000 a year job as an actuary specialising in corporate insurance.

The plan was for her 37-year-old husband, a service engineer, to become a house-husband, while his career wife was to quit work for three months.

Warning bells began to ring when Mr Gay branded Christian "a vegetable, a special needs child and an empty human being" to social worker Gill Jones eight days after the trial adoption period began.

She told the jury: "They were not sure he was the child they had in mind. He was proving to be someone different to what they had expected."

Christian was behind in talking and did not know his colours or letters.

Mrs Jones also "read the riot act" to Mrs Gay after she broke her promise and returned to work after only ten days off.

On the final weekend, the Gays flew into a rage when he refused to eat. They denounced his childlike behaviour as "being cheeky" and saw it as a bid to "wind them up".

The boy was left in a cot upstairs but fell unconscious with his jaw clamped shut.

The Gays failed to dial 999 but carried the boy to their Lotus car. But instead of driving nine miles to the nearest hospital in Redditch, Mr Gay drove 14 miles to Dudley.

Prosecutor Julia Macur QC said: "Christian had not come up to proof. It wasn't the comfortable and ready-made family they were hoping for. Christian was their bugbear, putting an end to all their dreams of a rosy future with three perfect children.

"There was nothing to suggest that he was anything but a normal, healthy child at the time of his placement with the Gays."

Miss Macur said he would have been able to distinguish salt from sugar.

Mr Gay accused Sandwell of not giving them the child's full medical background and confessed: "I didn't see Christian in the same light that he was portrayed to us."

The Gays were unable to explain the boy's high salt level. They suggested it was some unique medical condition or that he had obtained it himself.

Defence barristers claimed expert medical evidence was fallible, pointing to the Angela Cannings baby deaths case.

Roger Smith QC, for Mr Gay, said he must have realised some harm would come to Christian from the salt but had no idea that a catastrophe would occur.

Christopher Hotten QC, for Mrs Gay, said: "She had a bright future but has been left with very little."