SHAW: 12 MONTHS FOR BREAKING A BABY’S ARM AND LEG
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Southwark Crown Court/Oliver Wright
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23 September 2011
babygrow…1
A young dad who snapped his 12-week-old son’s arm and broke his leg in a fit of rage as he tried to force the tot into a babygrow has been jailed for just 12 months.
Tiny Anthony King suffered a displaced fracture in his upper arm and a double fracture of his thigh bone at the hands of his father Craig Shaw.
Doctors who examined the infant said Shaw, 24, had used ‘considerable force’ while the injuries were consistent with being ‘non-accidental’.
It was found they were sustained as a result of a ‘twisting or swinging movement’.
Southwark Crown Court heard Shaw had been in a ‘filthy mood’ after he failed to land a new job the previous day and had rowed with his partner Cheryl King in the run up to the incident on October 2, 2010.
Ms King was heard to have asked Shaw to dress the baby before she went to prepare the couple’s first child to go out.
Prosecutor Richard Milne said Ms King had gone back to check on Anthony when she heard him crying.
He said: ‘When she got back to the room where Anthony was he was being put into a babygrow which was slightly too small.
‘The defendant was still trying to dress him.
‘It appears he had been struggling with him.
‘Anthony was very upset and Ms King had to complete the dressing.
‘It is the crown’s case that this is most likely when both the right arm and left leg were fractured.’
The court heard that Ms King and her two children then went shopping and it was not until the next day that she noticed Anthony’s arm had swollen.
‘She asked the defendant what had happened and whether he might of dropped him or he had rolled off the bed,’ said Mr Milne.
‘The defendant said nothing had happened.’
The true extent of his injuries were not discovered until he was x-rayed at University College Hospital almost a day after the incident.
Anna Morris, defending, said her client had ‘suffered a momentary lapse of appreciation of the appropriate level of force to be used’ and added he thought he had only bruised the child.
‘It was not an action done to punish the child or to teach him a lesson, it was a use of inappropriate force.’
But Judge Anthony Pitts rejected he submissions and said: ‘He let things get on top of him.’
Sentencing Shaw to a year behind bars the judge added: ‘I have no doubt that you lost your temper when you could not get him into the babygrow and in using such force with him you broke his bones.
‘The offences are too serious in my judgement to suspend a sentence.’
Shaw, of (8) Stacey Street, in Camden, London, pleaded guilty to one count of cruelty to a person under 16.
Two count of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and two of inflicting grievous bodily harm were ordered to lie on file.
ENDS
