Father accused of shaking his infant daughter walks free from court as jury acquits him of all charges
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.
READ MORE
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. He said he told social workers he had done so in an attempt to ensure his partner would keep the child, who they feared they might never get to see again if one of them did not say he had shaken the girl.
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.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Baker who alleged he was subjected to racial slur in Polish wins €4,000
A baker has won €4,000 over being subjected to a racial slur in Polish by a colleague nearly six years ago. The award was made in a set of rulings published on Monday regarding a workplace dispute that arose in the spring of 2019. The worker, a black French man, alleged he was being bullied by predominantly Polish colleagues at an unidentified food and drinks company 'because he does not speak Polish'. The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) rejected various complaints of his alleging discrimination in breach of the Employment Equality Act 1998 on the grounds of race and disability. However, it found against the employer in respect of the racial slur incident in June 2019. READ MORE The worker gave evidence at a series of adjudication hearings, saying he 'felt threatened and isolated at work' during a period in early 2019 and felt he was suffering discrimination because he was 'black and did not speak Polish'. The worker said 'nothing was done' after he complained to his bosses in February 2019. The company's position was that it facilitated the worker by changing the start time of his shift and later changing his work location. It had also ordered his Polish colleagues to translate all work-related conversations to English, the tribunal was told. The complainant's further evidence was that after his transfer to the new work location he was subject to 'a particularly offensive and derogatory racial slur which was conveyed to him in Polish' on June 23rd, 2019. The worker who made the remark – which was not recorded in the tribunal's published decisions – left the employment the following day. The worker told the tribunal he 'did not know what it meant' until it was explained to him by a third party some months later, after which he filed his second complaint with the WRC. A head chef who gave evidence on behalf of the employer said 'nobody was subject to racial abuse' and that the workplace has 'zero tolerance' for bullying and harassment. The employer's position was that the complainant 'did not react well' when performance issues were raised with him. 'His response was to claim that he was being discriminated against and racially abused,' the company's representative submitted, adding that the firm had 'gone to great lengths' to support him. Adjudicator Andrew Heavey noted the accusation was 'vehemently denied' in the company's investigation process. However, he accepted the sworn evidence of the worker on the balance of probabilities. He wrote that despite the 'bona fides' and 'significant efforts' made by the employer to support the worker and address his complaints, it was still vicariously liable for the actions of its staff. He found the complainant was 'harassed on the race ground' on or about June 23rd, 2019, and directed the company to pay €4,000 in compensation for the discrimination. He rejected all other claims by the worker under the Employment Equality Act. Mr Heavey anonymised his decisions on the basis 'information of a sensitive nature relating to the complainant', which he believes 'deserves privacy'. He noted that when he held his final hearing into the claims last November, the complainant remained an employee of the firm and there had been 'no further issues'.
Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Trucker arrested after €1m cannabis find told gardaí: ‘I'll smoke it tomorrow', court hears
'I'll smoke it tomorrow,' a lorry driver allegedly found transporting more than €1 million worth of cannabis told investigating gardaí, a court has heard. Andrew Cooley (32) from Ballyoran, Dundalk, Co Louth, was arrested at Dublin Port at 1.45am on Saturday driving a truck that had arrived on a boat from Holyhead. The father of two was charged with unlawful possession of 55.4kg of cannabis, with an estimated value of €1,108,000, for the purpose of sale or supply. On Monday, he appeared at Dublin District Court where Garda Dylan Mallon objected to bail due to flight risk concerns. READ MORE The garda alleged a customs officer engaged with Mr Cooley and smelled cannabis coming from the truck. A search of the cab allegedly led to finding black bags covered by clothes. The contested bail hearing was told there were 31 black packages allegedly containing cannabis. Gardaí took Mr Cooley to Store Street station and interviewed him several times. It was alleged he admitted ownership and told gardaí: 'I'll smoke it tomorrow.' The garda feared the accused would evade justice because he had travelled to Europe multiple times as a driver, and his work was transferable. Defence solicitor Luke Staines said information from his client's employer showed Mr Cooley had never gone to continental Europe and had only travelled in Ireland and England. The defence stressed that Mr Cooley has ties to Ireland and has children here, while there was nothing to suggest he would leave the jurisdiction. Mr Staines said his client could face two years on remand until his trial. The solicitor told the court the driver would obey conditions and furnish a satisfactory address. Judge Michele Finan reserved her decision on the bail application until Friday. She granted legal aid.
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Alison Healy on how a 19-year old woman tricked the world with a literary hoax
The news desk of the New York Times had a bountiful harvest of stories to choose from on June 4th, 1926. Its front page features a story about the Crown Prince Gustav and Crown Princess Louise of Sweden stopping by the laboratory of Thomas Edison in New Jersey. He told the prince he had come up with a record that could play for 40 minutes and to prove it, he played I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen to the impressed royals. He also whipped a strip of film from his pocket and handed it to the prince, telling him it was a motion picture. Also on the front page is a story about a theatrical producer sentenced to prison over a case involving a bathtub on a stage that contained alcohol – this was the era of Prohibition of course. And in something that could have come straight out of an Agatha Christie novel, there's a report about a suspected gem thief who was arrested outside the Ritz and found to have had $30,000 worth of jewels in a secret compartment of her handbag. But most interesting of all for Irish readers is the headline 'Girl Tricks World with Literary Hoax intended as Joke'. A sub-heading explains that 'Magdalen King-Hall of Erin's Wild North Coast Wrote of Paris and Venice of Long Ago'. READ MORE The newspaper scoop explains how 'a little Irish girl, the 19-year-old daughter of a British naval officer, has accomplished the greatest literary hoax of the century'. Magdalen King-Hall, who was living in Portaferry, Co Down at the time, was the secret hand behind a best-selling sensation. The Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion in the Year 1764-1765 was published in 1925 and was purported to be the discovered diary of Cleone Knox from Castle Kearney, Co Down. It reads like the mid-18th century version of Bridget Jones' Diary, with a mild hint of Sex in the City and a sprinkle of Jane Austen thrown in for good measure. Conveniently, the foreword explains there is no portrait or miniature of Cleone Knox because of a fire at Castle Kearney in 1808. The diary opens with her beau, the handsome rogue David Ancaster, falling from the ivy as he attempts to gain entry to her bedroom late one night. Papa finds him prostrate on the ground and there is hell to pay. She's not too bothered though as she adds that she 'Tried on my new striped silk gown which becomes me excessively well.' To avoid any more amorous indiscretions, Papa takes Cleone and her brother Ned away on a grand European tour. She finds herself in a series of humorous predicaments, administering a sound box on the ears to a drunken suitor, and falling off the chair with tiredness when a hostess insists on reading from Milton's Paradise Lost for three hours. Like an olde world Forrest Gump, she meets everyone who matters. In France, she's presented to the king and queen at Versailles. She finds the queen to be dowdy and the royal daughters plain and clumsy while King Louis XV is handsome but dissolute. In Switzerland, Voltaire receives her family in a chintz dressing-gown and reminds her of a 'chattering old magpie'. Her brother runs off with a nun in Venice which makes her wonder if there are not enough loose women in Venice 'without him ravishing a cloistered nun'. The diary ends abruptly with the surprise appearance of David Ancaster in Venice. We are informed that they eloped, married and lived happily ever after in Co Down with their brood of 12 children. Recalling the hoax diary on the King-Hall family website, Magdalen King-Hall's late son Richard Perceval Maxwell wrote that The Sunday Times had published a long and enthusiastic review of the book and lauded it as a great find, similar to the Pepys diaries. 'One reader, Winston Churchill…excused his late arrival at a dinner party by saying he had had to finish the Diary before coming,' he wrote. Six months after the bestseller was published, Magdalen King-Hall admitted her deception, thus further boosting sales. She was bored and had written it to pass the time. She also pointed to an error that could have blown her cover – her diarist was reading Walpole's Castle of Otrantoe a few months before the book was published. Happily for readers, Magdalen King-Hall put her lively imagination to great effect in later life, becoming a journalist and successful author. The mid-1920s were no barrel of laughs, with Hitler publishing Mein Kampf and Mussolini becoming a dictator, but, for a short and glorious time, Magdalen King-Hall added greatly to the gaiety of the nation.
