At the end of a gruelling three-week trial, a prominent sportsman was found not guilty of serious child abuse allegations after maintaining his innocence for two years. Felicity Dear recaps the case.
A quick act of violence in a moment of frustration, or microscopic injuries slowly worsening over time?
That was the question at the centre of a three-week trial of a prominent sportsman accused of breaking more than a dozen of an infant’s bones.
After hearing hours of expert evidence, witness statements and testimony from the defendant himself, it only took the jury four hours to find the man not guilty.
They rejected the Crown’s claim the man had squeezed the baby in a moment of frustration.
But the trial was not without its hiccups.
An expert relying on artificial intelligence and another who was previously censured for providing false testimony were among the controversies.
From the beginning, it was clear the trial would hinge on medical evidence provided by both Crown and defence experts.
With no-one else around at the time of the alleged violence on July 16, 2023, circumstantial evidence and expert opinions were all the jury had to rely on.
The Crown experts said the injuries had to be inflicted.
A baby brought to the hospital with no explanation for multiple rib fractures and a broken collarbone rang alarm bells for the paediatricians on the ground.
A paediatrician who saw the baby in the hospital gave evidence that when an injury is unexplained, non-accidental injury had to be seriously considered.
The fractures were “acute” and showed no signs of healing, meaning they had occurred in the past 10 days.
“It’s not what you see with normal handling of babies … it requires strong force.
“The injuries are therefore indicative of inflicted injury,” her statement to police concluded.
While testing revealed the child had a moderate to severe vitamin-D deficiency, hospital staff concluded the baby had no signs of bone fragility or rickets.
Paediatric radiologist Dr Russell Metcalfe said the injuries were “almost certainly the result of abusive trauma”.
He believed the assault would have been a squeeze because of the pattern of the rib fractures.
“You’ve got a big adult hand and a small child and it’s the pressure from the squeezing that gives you a row.”
Because the child was not able to move on his own and would have been constantly under supervision, the incident that caused the fractures could not have gone un-noticed, Dr Metcalfe said.
“Whoever caused these fractures … would’ve immediately recognised that they’d hurt the child as the child would’ve been very distressed.
“If a child is being looked after by two caregivers, then one of them knows what has happened.”
The Crown experts also shut down alternative theories, including the mother rolling on the child while co-sleeping.
Forensic pathologist Dr Leslie Anderson said it would be “highly unusual” for an adult rolling on their child in bed to cause the fractures.
“Accidental rib fractures are very rare due to the pliability of infants’ bones and the force required to fracture them.
“Non-accidental injury is thought to be the most common explanation for rib fractures in infants.”
The Crown pointed to a moment when the defendant was alone with the baby on July 16, 2023.
He admitted getting frustrated when he could not settle him and calling the child’s mother to come home.
But people close to the defendant were sure that narrative did not add up.
The mother of the baby was first to take the stand and vouch for the man — even suggesting she could have been the one who caused the injuries by rolling on the baby while co-sleeping.
Her phone had been bugged by police, who she said were “grossly twisting everything we said out of context”.
At the conclusion of the three-hour discussion, Detective Todd Balogh stressed he did not think the woman was a bad parent.
“I know [the baby] has been a difficult child since birth and I don’t think that whatever’s happened to him has been a deliberate or intentional act to try and hurt him.
“But I think something has happened and I think [the defendant] has done something to him.
“He’s potentially sitting on the biggest secret he’s ever had.”
But the woman refused to accept the boy had been the victim of child abuse.
“I don’t believe at all [the defendant] has hurt him, whether it’s intentional or unintentional.
“He’s not that type of person at all.
“He wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
“You know when you have that gut feeling? I just know he hasn’t hurt him.
“It’s just not his character.”
The defendant’s neighbours also backed him up.
A crew of support people filed into the courtroom each day of the trial.
“It’s laughable to even think that that man could be violent,” one neighbour said.
“If for any reason I thought that he had hurt him, I would not have stayed silent.”
While the defendant initially was worried he could have hurt the baby while burping him, the suggestion was quickly shut down by everyone else.
“[The baby’s mother] made a very flippant remark at that time that [the defendant] was worried that when he was burping [the baby] he might have squeezed him,” a family member said.
“Both of us dismissed it straight away.”
During the trial, the defendant even offered correction officers glasses of water when he poured one for himself.
To the people who knew the sportsman, it did not add up.
His lawyer, Anne Stevens KC, called defence experts who offered alternative explanations for the injuries.
Dr Douglas Benson offered his view to the jury — that the injuries were caused at birth, but healing was delayed by weeks due to the child’s vitamin-D deficiency.
But before he could explain that to the jury, a live transcriber had to be called in so the Californian orthopaedic surgeon could understand the lawyers’ New Zealand accents.
Dr Benson said the baby’s vitamin-D deficiency had caused bone fragility and signs of this could be seen on X-ray.
“I am certain that his rib and clavicle fractures were birth related.
“When deficiencies are present … healing is much delayed and the remodeling process can be delayed for months until sufficient minerals are available for normal bone repair and growth.”
He pointed to the lack of bruising on the child and to a cause other than abuse.
“Usually with traumatic injuries there are associated bruises, birth injuries infrequently have any associated bruising in my experience.
“The fractures occurred due to bone failure rather than excessive force.”
The Crown said Dr Benson was straying out of his area of expertise while giving evidence.
“You have gone well outside your lane in numerous areas of your evidence, genetics, endocrinology, radiology, obstetrics, you name it,” prosecutor Robin Bates said in cross examination.
“You’ve gone right over to the other side of the highway and you’re travelling in a lane in the opposite direction.”
Dr Benson argued the evidence he provided were “objective facts” and he would “put those against any credentials or claims”.
It was also revealed he got some of his information about bone fragility from AI — a point the Crown was also concerned about.
Another US defence expert obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Barry Schifrin also said it was possible the injuries were caused during the “extraordinarily rapid” birth.
“The baby is being squeezed, at least the head, maybe the body as well.”
While birth-related rib fractures were “rare” they had been documented.
“There is no fracture or set of fractures that is diagnostic of abuse,” he said.
“Those alleging abuse in this case have failed to responsibly exclude the significant potential of birth injury.”
Dr Schifrin told the jury he was censured by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 2004.
Under cross-examination he revealed why.
“They said I had intentionally lied or misrepresented facts in a case, which was certainly not true, but that’s what they said.
“It had no impact. It was, I believe, an attempt to get me to stop testifying, especially for plaintiffs.”
He later received awards from the organisation and had continued giving evidence in cases since the censure.
By the end of the 16 days, the jury was overloaded with a raft of differing medical opinions.
But they did not have to determine the cause of the fractures, only whether or not the defendant caused them, Mrs Stevens reminded them.
“It’s not your job to reach a verdict of what caused [the] fractures, the charges related to [the defendant]. He’s the one on trial,” she said.
“You don’t need to make a medical or scientific decision.”
The man would require a “personality transplant” to commit the alleged offence.
She suggested the Crown case was “total rubbish”.
“To suggest he could have a brain explosion because [the baby] was unsettled does not fit; it simply does not match the man.
“There’s no evidence he was tired or at the end of his tether.
“There’s nothing out of the ordinary going on here.”
The case ultimately boiled down to the kind of man the jury had in front of them.
“This is a gentle man.
“He’s universally considered to be a caring man.
“He’s known for how good he is with children.
“There is not one iota of evidence that he would direct his frustration at the child.”
For two years the defendant had remained adamant he would never harm the baby.
He told the jury that on the day in question he was frustrated, but only with himself.
“It just blows my mind.
“I would never hurt him or put him in a position where he could be hurt.
“That just seems crazy to me.”
He recalled the shock when the doctors told him the injuries were non-accidental.
Ultimately the jury believed him and the man was cleared of the charge.
He closed his eyes as the verdicts were read out and was embraced by his supporters.
After the trial, the man had a month to apply for final name suppression.
But for now, his two-year nightmare was over.