A high profile sportsman accused of serious family violence – crushing the ribs of an infant in July 2023 – has given evidence at his trial in the Dunedin District Court, on occasion, breaking down in tears.
The Crown has argued the injuries were not intentional, but were reckless, and a squeezing movement around the torso of the victim was an unreasonable risk, requiring “significant force”.
X-rays from when the victim was taken to Dunedin Hospital showed at least a dozen rib fractures and a broken clavicle.
When asked this afternoon about the date he was accused of hurting the child, the accused man, who has name suppression, said he “never” did it.
He said “it just blows my mind” to be accused of being reckless.
“I’d never hurt him … It seems crazy to me.”
He said the first weeks of the child’s life were hard because the baby appeared “unsettled and in pain a lot”.
The accused said the baby’s body was very tight and he couldn’t sleep, and it was “very sad to see”.
He demonstrated how he would hold the child as taught by medical professionals and in educational videos, the same way he had done before with another baby he had held.
The accused said the child’s crying was high-pitched, in the first month of his life.
“Like he was in agony … He was just always crying.”
He said he was the only adult at home with the newborn on the day he was accused of hurting the baby, because he wanted to give the child’s mother some time to herself, and normality.
He said he was “shocked” and “just couldn’t believe it” when he later heard the child had fractures.
But then he added: “It kind of made sense because he was so stressed and just cried all the time, and was really upset and looked really sore.”
Defence: ‘Fine line fractures from birth?’
Defence counsel Anne Stevens KC’s opening argument this afternoon was that the accused was “caring and gentle” and would never risk the safety of a child.
Stevens said the Crown wanted the jury to see a version of the accused “who does not exist” – that being a version who would put a child at risk and injure them.
She argued the child had fractures due to age, tiny bones and severe Vitamin D deficiency but these factors did not involve the accused.
“There may have been fine-line fractures from birth,” she said, that “could have been aggravated by his persistently unsettled, unhappy condition… and that his severe Vitamin D deficiency compromised the healing process.”
She said some of the fractures could have been displaced by vomiting or bowel straining, and the defence witnesses would give evidence supporting this in the coming days.
The sportsman’s charge of injury with reckless disregard carried a maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment.
He faced an alternative charge of assaulting a person in a family relationship.
