The defendant, whose name is suppressed, is on trial before the Dunedin District Court after pleading not guilty to injuring with reckless disregard (and alternative assault charge).
The jury yesterday heard him tell his story as he fought back tears when asked to discuss events from July 16, 2023.
"It’s the day they’re accusing me of hurting [the infant]," he said.
"I just wouldn’t even do it."
The baby’s mother was at the gym for less than an hour that day and the Crown says the defendant caused at least eight fractured ribs and a broken collarbone using a squeezing or crushing force when he became upset with the unsettled child.
The sportsman accepted he was frustrated at the time — but only with himself.
"It just blows my mind. I would never hurt him or put him in a position where he could be hurt," the man told the jury.
"That just seems crazy to me."
He described the infant awaking shortly after the mother went to the gym, so he warmed up a bottle of milk and employed his usual method to try to relieve the child’s wind.
"I just wanted to feed him and he was getting upset, which was making me upset," the defendant said.
"I just knew he was hungry, but he wasn’t taking the bottle."
After more cuddles, burping and feeding attempts, the man eventually called the child’s mother to return.
"I didn’t want to call [her] because I kind of saw it as failure," the defendant said.
"He was just getting more upset. Those cries were getting louder and louder."
He told the court he put the baby in a bassinet while he sat nearby, disappointed by his inability to calm the child.
When the mother came home and fed the baby, everything calmed down, the man said.
Had he done anything different that morning, counsel Anne Stevens KC asked.
"No ... stock-standard stuff," the defendant said.
In cross-examination, Crown prosecutor Richard Smith suggested the man had been under intense pressure and suffered a momentary "brain explosion".
"You were losing your patience, big time," Mr Smith said.
But the defendant denied that was the case.
He spoke of his devastation hearing about the fractures being diagnosed several days later, but said it made sense given how unhappy the baby had seemed since birth.
Those emotions soon turned to shock, the man said, when a doctor first raised the possibility of the injuries being "non-accidental".
A procession of Crown medical-expert witnesses have repeated that assertion, all concluding there were no other plausible explanations for the infant’s fractures.
But Mrs Stevens, in her opening to the jury yesterday, indicated the defence would call three experts — with more than 100 years of combined experience — who would give a contrary point of view.
One of them, she said, would testify the fine-line fractures may have been present since birth, and could have been aggravated over the period of the child’s persistent unhappiness.
The baby’s severe vitamin D deficiency would have compromised the baby’s healing, leading to the injuries being considered fresher than they actually were, Mrs Stevens said.
Regardless, she stressed to the jury they should not get bogged down by the science.
"It’s not your job to reach a verdict of what caused [the] fractures, the charges related to [the defendant]. He’s the one on trial," she said.
"You don’t need to make a medical or scientific decision."
Mrs Stevens asked her client what his response was to the child-abuse allegations.
"It’s just sad I have to go through this, not just me but my whole family," he said.
The trial, before Judge David Robinson, is expected to conclude this week.
