A 31-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to seriously assaulting his five-month-old infant daughter, leaving her with bruises to her face and body, as well as a broken collar bone, and bleeding in the brain, among other injuries.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court, where he pleaded not guilty to three charges, which the State alleges occurred while the infant was in his care at the family home over a six-week period between 25 November 2020 and 4 January 2021.
The child's father is charged with causing serious harm to the child on 4 January 2021, contrary to Section 4 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997, and with assault causing harm to the child between 25 November and 15 December 2020, contrary to Section 3 of the same Act.
The man is also charged with willfully assaulting or ill-treating the child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering to the child's health or seriously affect the child's wellbeing, contrary to Section 246 of the Children's Act 2001.
Opening the prosecution case, Senior Counsel Jane Hyland told the jury of seven women and five men that they would hear from a number of witnesses, including childcare workers, the infant's grandmother, and medical staff who treated the child on her admittance to hospital on 4 January 2021.
They would hear evidence from childcare workers of a bruise to the child's left cheek, and from her grandmother who also had concerns about bruises on the baby's chest and face in late November and early December 2020.
The grandmother would say how she was called to the family home on 4 January 2021 and found the child looking "very distressed and lethargic" before the parents took the child to Cork University Hospital.
Ms Hyland said the defendant was interviewed in the days that followed his daughter's admittance to hospital and allegedly told one social worker that he had "accidentally" dropped the infant, while he allegedly later told another social worker that he had shaken the baby on two separate occasions.
When hospitalized on 4 January 2021, doctors found the child had bruises to her face, cheek, stomach, abdomen and buttock, as well as a fractured collar bone, an injury to deep soft tissue under the spine and blood on the surface of the brain and bleeding behind the eyes.
Her father has denied all three charges.
The trial before Judge Dermot Sheehan at Cork Circuit Criminal Court is expected to last for up to two weeks.
