A man told gardaí he lied by telling social workers he shook his baby, saying he feared he and his partner would lose custody and be jailed if he did not take the blame for the five-month-old’s injuries.
The accused (31), who cannot be named to protect the identity of his child, accepted he had told gardaí in March 2021 that, despite his earlier explanation to social workers, he had never shaken his daughter.
The court heard his first explanation to social workers was that the injuries were caused by an accidental fall, but he later told them he shook the child.
He said his partner’s parents told him he and his partner would both lose custody if he did not accept responsibility for the child’s injuries.
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“I thought we would not get our baby if somebody didn’t say they had shaken her,” said the man insisting his initial version of events - that the child fell accidentally in his care - was the truth.
He then told gardaí the first fall happened in November 2020 when he was minding the child at home in Cork. He was winding and burping her over his shoulder when she toppled over his shoulder and fell on a couch before landing on the wooden floor, he said.
In December 2020 he was taking the baby upstairs one evening when he tripped near the top of the stairs and the baby fell on to the wooden landing.
His partner was upstairs when the first fall happened, while he was alone in the house when the second one happened, he said. He did not tell his partner about either fall as he did not want people to think that he was not capable of minding their daughter.
The man denies causing serious harm to the child on January 4th, 2021, contrary to section 4 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 and denies assault causing harm between November 25th and December 15th, 2020, contrary to section 3 of the same act.
He also denies that he wilfully assaulted or ill-treated the child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering to her health or seriously affect the child’s wellbeing between November 25th, 2020 and January 4th, 2021, contrary to section 246 of the Children’s Act 2001.
The trial before a jury of five men and seven women previously heard consultant paediatrician Dr Rosina McGovern say believed the baby’s injuries, reviewed by doctors at Cork University Hospital when her parents brought her there on January 4th, 2021, amounted to “serious harm”.
These included bruises on her face, cheek, stomach, abdomen and right buttock, and abrasions on her left temporal area, cheek and nose. She also had a broken collarbone and there was evidence of bleeding to her brain, which was suggestive of abusive head trauma or shaken baby syndrome.
In the memos of an interview with gardaí that were read into evidence on Monday, the man said he told social workers he had shaken the child because he “felt I was going to be blamed anyway … because I am a male of a certain age everyone is going to think I injured my child, and it is a horrible feeling”.
He said the truth was in his first version of events– that he dropped the child accidentally.
“I told the truth from the start. I am not taking the blame for something I did not do. I don’t care if anyone believes me, I just want to get her [his daughter] back.
“I didn’t shake her, I swear to God I didn’t do it. 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,” he said. He added that he knows his partner did not shake the baby as she is “the most sane person I’ve ever met”.
The trial continues.
