Torture accused dad 'snapped'
A TIRED young father told police he "snapped" in anger when he could not settle his newborn daughter one night and broke her leg by bending it out sideways.
On the first day of his Cairns District Court trial, where the man, now 21, is facing charges of torture, failing to provide medical care and three counts of assault occasioning bodily harm against his then six-week-old child, a recording of his confession to police was played.
In it, the then 19-year-old said he had immediately been shocked at what he had done and handed the bab0y to her mother so he did not harm her further.
"I don't want to lose (baby’s name)," he told police.
"But I just don't want to do it again, I know I love her but it's not a normal thing to do so I'm really upset.
"I never thought I'd ever do anything like it, I thought I had pretty good coping abilities."
The man also said he believed he was responsible for fracturing the baby's ribs when he squeezed her harder than normal during the same incident at the couple’s Woree unit about 9.30pm on October 18, 2008.
The baby was found to have 24 fractures to her ribs and a broken thighbone when she was X-rayed at the Cairns Base Hospital the next morning.
But in her evidence, hospital paediatrician Elena Mantz said the rib fractures did not occur at the same time, with two distinct age differences.
Some showed calluses where the bones had already started to heal which meant they were at least seven days old, while the others were more recent, Dr Mantz said.
The pattern was consistent with compression from the front as well as the back, with five or six ribs on both sides having two fractures each, she said.
Regarding the injury to the baby's thighbone, Dr Mantz said that as one of the biggest and most solid bones in the body it would have taken significant force to break.
There was also a spiral fracture, indicating the break had happened by twisting the leg, Dr Mantz said.
"Classically, it would be something holding the knee and rotating the knee outwards against the upper part fixed against the pelvis," she said.
The trial continues today.
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On trial: A tired young father told police he "snapped" in anger when he could not settle his newborn daughter one night and broke her leg by bending it out sideways. He is on trial in Cairns District Court.
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