His defence said the man would never risk the safety of a child and insisted there were other ways the baby could have been hurt, including a severe vitamin D deficiency, birth injuries or underlying bone fragility.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Robin Bates told the court that the medical evidence and experts showed the man inflicted the baby\u2019s injuries, even if it was unintentional.<\/p>\n
The household had been under stress in the weeks beforehand, the baby was difficult, not settling or feeding, and his mother could not get away to take time for herself because the man could not settle the child, Bates said.<\/p>\n
She arrived home early from the gym to find the man sitting in the corner with his head in his hands, clearly upset, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
Bates said the Crown alleged that the man had tried everything to settle the baby to no avail. He got angry, picked the child up and gave him a squeeze \u201cin pure frustration\u201d after he momentarily lost the plot.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll it would take is that one squeeze,\u201d the lawyer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe say it was a squeeze because of the nature and location of the fractures … large hands, a small baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bates said the Crown\u2019s paediatric radiology expert, Starship hospital\u2019s Dr Russell Metcalfe, told the court that the vertical line of injuries, all one after another, were important because they indicated a child had been grasped and squeezed.<\/p>\n
He dismissed the defence\u2019s alternative suggestion that the boy could have been injured during birth, saying it was not a reasonable conclusion.<\/p>\n
Evidence from the experienced midwife involved in the birth showed she did a complete physical check after he was born, and there was no indication he was in any pain or had any breaks, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
Bates said the midwife checked again when the infant was 1 week old and found he was fine, but a bit grizzly and not settling well.<\/p>\n
Some babies were like that, and there was nothing to suggest there were any birth injuries, Bates said.<\/p>\n
He challenged the evidence given by the defence\u2019s expert witness, Dr Douglas Benson, an orthopaedic surgeon and expert in metabolic bone conditions, who said he was certain the infant\u2019s fractured ribs were a birth injury and did not heal because of the baby\u2019s vitamin-D deficiency.<\/p>\n
Bates said Benson described unrestrained, compulsive pushing during labour, when it was a quick birth with two large contractions, two pushes and the baby was born.<\/p>\n
It sounded as if he were looking at someone else\u2019s birthing record and completely ignored the radiological evidence, Bates said.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor also called into question the suggestion that the baby\u2019s mother could have rolled on to him in bed and caused the injuries, saying it was not a reasonable conclusion.<\/p>\n
There were dozens of cases that showed that if that had happened, the baby would have died, Bates said.<\/p>\n
The defence was expected to give its closing address on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His defence said the man would never risk the safety of a child and insisted there were other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1117,6790,6794,6796,1121,6789,1349,6788,1350,78,6793,111,43,139,69,1118,6791,6792,6795],"class_list":["post-5153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accused","tag-arguments","tag-baby","tag-brunton","tag-case","tag-closing","tag-court","tag-dunedin","tag-hears","tag-in","tag-injuring","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-prominent","tag-sportsman","tag-tess"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}