A 31-year-old man has walked free from court after a jury found him not guilty of a series of charges where it was alleged that he had shaken his five-month-old daughter and caused her harm and unnecessary suffering.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his daughter, denied all three charges, which the State alleged occurred while the infant was in his care at their family home in Cork over a six-week period between November 25th, 2020, and January 4th, 2021.
He was charged with causing serious harm to the child on January 4th, 2021, and with assault causing harm to the child between November 25th and December 15th, 2020.
The man was also charged with wilfully assaulting or ill-treating the child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering to the child’s health or seriously affect the child’s wellbeing.
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A jury of five men and seven women at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on Friday unanimously found the man not guilty of the assault causing harm charge. They returned majority verdicts acquitting him of the charges of causing serious harm and ill-treatment.
Judge Dermot Sheehan thanked the jury for their diligence and deliberation before informing the accused that he was free to go. The man was immediately embraced by his mother, who had sat through the nine-day trial at Anglesea Street courthouse in Cork.
Prosecution counsel Jane Hyland SC had called evidence from consultant paediatrician Dr Rosina McGovern, who said the accused and his partner brought the child to Cork University Hospital on January 4th, 2021, and offered no explanation for the many injuries the child had.
These included bruises on her face, cheek, stomach, abdomen and buttock and abrasions on her forehead, cheek and nose, and a fractured collarbone. A CT scan showed bleeding on the brain and behind the eyes – injuries the court heard are usually associated with a high-impact collision such as a car crash.
Dr McGovern said the brain injuries, which were caused by a back-and-forth acceleration and deceleration movement, were consistent with abusive head trauma or shaken baby syndrome. She said she believed the injuries constituted serious harm as defined in Irish law.
However, the accused testified that he had never shaken the baby and said he had only told social workers he had shaken the child so his partner could get to keep her, as they feared they would never get to see her again if one of them did not say that he had shaken her.
He also said that earlier admissions about twice dropping the child accidentally were similarly made in order to provide an explanation to the hospital authorities for the child’s injuries. He said they were told they would not be allowed to take the child home until the injuries were explained.
The accused spent almost three hours in the witness box and his mother and his partner’s mother also gave evidence, as did hospital consultants, social workers and investigating gardaí. The infant’s mother did not attend the hearing or give evidence.
Defence counsel Ray Boland SC made reference to the fact that the infant’s mother was not called by the prosecution. He said the jury needed to pay particular heed to her absence, given how central she was to the narrative proposed by the prosecution.
“It is a huge [mother’s name]-shaped hole in the case. Does [mother’s name] look like a person who would shake a baby? We don’t know. And we don’t know why the DPP did not bring her,” he said to the jury.
Mr Boland also suggested to the jury that only “an eejit” would make admissions that he did something such as shake the baby if they had not done it. However, he said his client had done that was because he was young and out of his depth among professionals such as doctors and social workers.
The jury heard memos of interviews from when gardaí questioned the accused.
“I didn’t shake her, I swear to God I didn’t do it,” he said. “I know somebody did shake her, but I don’t know who. I will maintain my innocence until the day I die. I did not shake my baby.”
