Moron broke tot’s leg using it like drumstick
Man’s cruel ‘game’ with six-week-old baby
A MAN has admitted breaking a six-week-old baby’s leg after “playing drums” with him.
Lee Walker, of Hamilton, was looking after the tot when he injured the boy and left him crying in agony.
The 22-year-old had moved the baby’s legs around and used them as “drumsticks” but stopped the cruel “game” when the infant suddenly started screaming.
Walker failed to mention the incident to the child’s mother as she struggled to feed and settle the baby afterwards.
But he made a tearful confession to authorities after an investigation was launched when doctors found that the baby had a broken right femur.
Walker has appeared at Hamilton Sheriff Court, where he admitted culpably and recklessly causing an injury to the boy by means unknown in November last year.
Prosecutors said the child’s mother had taken the baby to hospital after she noticed that he began to scream whenever she touched his right leg, and that the leg felt “floppy”.
Police and social workers started investigating the i n c i dent and Walke r eventually said he was responsible for the injury.
Mairi- Clare McMi l lan, prosecuting, said: “When the child’s mother spoke with the accused and said the baby may have to go into foster care, the accused broke down and said, ‘I hope I have not hurt him. What if it has been when I’ve been playing with him? What if it has been when I’ve been playing drums with him?’
“The mother did not make anyone aware of this.
“The accused then contacted social work in a distressed state and provided details of the game where he was pretending to play drums with the child’s arms and legs.
“He said he took the child’s legs and began shaking them up and down like drumsticks before the child gave a sharp cry.”
Walker had originally been charged with assaulting the boy to his severe injury but prosecutors accepted a guilty plea to the lesser charge.
Sheriff Thomas Millar deferred sentence until next month and continued Walker’s bail.