Man Denies Charges Of Shaking Baby To Death

A 34-year-old man has gone on trial accused of murdering his former girlfriends three-and-a-half-month-old baby in 2005.

The jury at the Central Criminal Court was told that the cause of death of the three-and-a-half-month-old was head trauma but that the prosecution cannot prove the mechanism by which it was caused.

Prosecutor Tom O'Connell told the court it was the State's case that the trauma that directly caused death was inflicted two days before the infant died at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin on April 5, 2005.

He said the child also developed pneumonia in hospital, hastening his death. Mr O'Connell told the jury the death was not accidental and that they would hear evidence the injuries are consistent with shaken baby syndrome.

He said there were four points of bruising to the head and it was the prosecution's case that it was not consistent with one incident of trauma.

The prosecution will present its case on the basis of the findings by pathologist who said that injuries to the body and the damage found was "not expected to occur in a not-yet mobile child".

The prosecution says Mr Doyle gave different accounts about what happened to the baby, that he lied to medics about what happened before the child became ill and that the accused did not say he was in the house on his own with the infant at the time of the incident.

The trial is expected to take five weeks.

(H)