The Dunedin District Court trial for the defendant – who has interim name suppression – comes on the back of him pleading not guilty to a charge of injuring by reckless disregard and an alternative assault charge.
He was with the child on July 16, 2023 and it is alleged his frustration boiled over and he inflicted a “crushing” force while the infant’s mother was at the gym.
The lengthy court case is reaching its conclusion as Crown prosecutor Robin Bates gave his closing address today.
He said the child’s fractures – up to a dozen broken ribs, and a broken clavicle – formed a vertical line rather than scattered sporadically as may be the case in an accident.
A prosecution expert said it was indicative of a baby being gripped and squeezed.
“You might think that makes a lot of sense,” Mr Bates said.
“Big hands, strong hands, small baby.”
Mr Bates said there had been a build up of pressure in the preceding days as the baby’s mother was frustrated at not being able to get some time out.
When she returned from the gym on the day in question, the defendant was visibly frustrated.
While the sportsman said he was upset with himself at being unable to settle the child, Mr Bates suggested the issues had resulted in a moment of “pure frustration”.
“Everybody can lose the plot,” he said.
Mr Bates urged the jury to reject the assertion the child’s injuries could have been caused during birth.
He referred to the evidence of Starship Hospital’s Dr Russell Metcalfe – a paediatric radiologist working at the “coal face”.
“If there were birth injuries there would’ve been signs of healing . . . at the time the fractures were first seen,” Mr Bates said.
“Whatever people tell you, this is not a birth injury."
The prosecutor also pointed to the evidence from geneticist Professor Stephen Robertson who ruled out a bone-weakness disorder to “a very high degree of likelihood”.
The baby’s significant vitamin-D deficiency became a point of great contention during the trial.
A prolonged lack of the vitamin can cause rickets, which in turn leads to weakened bones.
But Mr Bates cited the evidence of paediatric endochrinologist Professor Ben Wheeler, who said the deficiency was common in babies born in the south, and further, said there was no biochemical evidence of rickets in the infant.
A simple lack of vitamin D alone did not affect bone strength, he said.
The defence medical experts, Mr Bates said, had veered outside their areas of expertise and had strayed into advocacy.
The court heard during the trial the unsettled baby would only sleep on its mother and, while she did not recall a specific incident, she suggested she may have rolled over and crushed the child during her sleep-deprived state.
That was just something that had been “put in her head”, Mr Bates suggested.
The trial had lasted a “very long” three weeks and the transcript of evidence had stretched beyond 1000 pages, Mr Bates said.
He acknowledged the jury had been bombarded with medical evidence but stressed none of the defence theories were reasonable explanations for the broken bones.
Mr Bates also warned jurors not to be swayed by sympathy, particularly for the defendant or “the family [of the child] in the middle of a nightmare”.
They needed to approach their task “coolly, calmly, objectively”, he said.
Counsel Anne Stevens KC will close the case for the defence this afternoon
