A prominent sportsman on trial for alleged child abuse was concerned about police tapping his phone, a court has heard.
The defendant, who has name suppression until at least the end of the Dunedin District Court trial, has pleaded not guilty to injuring with reckless disregard and an alternative assault charge.
He is accused of applying a “squeezing or crushing” force to the boy’s torso – causing more than a dozen rib fractures and a broken collarbone - during a moment of frustration while the child’s mother was at the gym in July 2023.
But counsel Anne Stevens KC said there was no evidence of such an attack and suggested there were other explanations for the infant’s injuries.
Today, the jury heard two intercepted phone calls.
In the first, it became clear the defendant had concerns police were listening to his communications.
The two-and-a-half minute conversation, played for the jury, began with him and the baby’s mother talking but the defendant said he was reluctant to discuss his news further.
“The police might, like, tap our phones,” the man said.
The baby’s mother today said they had been told at the time that phone-tapping was a possibility.
"By this stage we noticed police were grossly twisting everything we said out of context,” she said.
Another intercepted call featured her conversation with a fracture specialist – whose identity is suppressed - who suggested the child’s injuries may have been caused by the mother rolling onto him while asleep.
“You could argue, plausibly, he might have had a good night, you fell into such a deep sleep and you rolled over and crushed him accidentally,” the man said.
“You’d have to have a story that would support that. Everything you’d say would need to be consistent.
"It’s dangerous for me to be talking to you and putting ideas in your head.”
The doctor later added: “I can’t be seen to influence what you say.
"We’d all get in big trouble and the police would not look at that favourably.”
Crown prosecutor Robin Bates later focused on the sequence of events around the alleged child abuse.
The mother had gone to the gym on the morning of July 16, 2023, leaving the defendant alone with the infant, the court heard.
It was then, the Crown alleged, that the man squeezed the child’s torso causing the extensive fractures.
She said she returned home less than an hour later to find the baby crying in a bassinet and the defendant with his head in his hands, frustrated he could not settle the boy.
The mother said there was no obvious change in her son’s unsettled behaviour in the two days between then and his admission to hospital.
The hospital visit only occurred because she began to hear a “crackling” sound in the boy’s chest, which prompted a trip to the urgent doctor who referred them on to the emergency department.
The baby’s mother was interviewed by police in August 2023, a recording of which was played in court this morning.
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,” the officer said.
“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,” she said.
“You know when you have that gut feeling? I just know he hasn’t hurt him. It's just not his character."
Det Balogh told the mother scans showing the babies fractured ribs and collarbone had been sent to Starship Hospital for a second opinion.
Experts there opined the injuries were “almost certainly the result of abusive trauma”, he said.
The trial continues.
