Newborn shaken, Crown says

A father has been accused of shaking a 3-week-old baby so that the newborn suffered a significant brain injury.

The man, 31, pleaded not guilty to a charge of causing grievous bodily harm with reckless disregard to the safety of the baby on July 5, 2016.

But at the High Court in Wellington yesterday, the man’s lawyer said he was blamed for something he did not do.

The names of the people involved are suppressed to protect the child.

The Crown said the baby had not been feeding well, and had been crying, so the man had taken the baby to sleep with him in the lounge.

Unusually, the baby slept through the night and in the morning the baby’s breathing and crying seemed different, and his eyes appeared ‘‘glazed’’, prosecutor Sally Carter said outlining the case to the jury.

The baby was taken to the general practitioner and then to hospital, where he started having fits. Tests showed extensive bleeding on his brain of a type that there would have been near immediate onset of symptoms, Carter said. The Crown said the head injury must have been sustained overnight before he was taken to hospital.

Professionals thought it was not an accidental injury.

The baby also had a fracture where his shin bone met his knee, commonly a shaken baby type injury, and a fractured thumb.

Until that night the father had been loving and caring, so he must have momentarily lost control and caused the injuries.

It was not suggested he intended to harm the baby,

Carter said.

But the baby had suffered significant harm and stayed in hospital about 20 days. He was now about 2 years old. The long-term effects of the injury were not known and they were not relevant to the decision the jury had to make, she said.

The mother was caring for two other children. She also had one child adopted out and after that birth she had post natal depression. It might be suggested she caused the injuries but she would give evidence that she did not, Carter said.

The father’s lawyer, Letizea Ord, said the father had been blamed for something he didn’t do. How it happened, when it happened and who was responsible, would still be unclear at the end of the trial. The defence said the police had to guess who was responsible.