An emergency protection order was issued in respect of the boy after his parents took him to hospital in September when the father discovered a large lump on the right side of his son’s head when he returned home from work. The child had been in the care of his mother that day.
According to a recently published judgment, after examining the child, Dr David Lawrenson, the consultant paediatrician at the Hospital, produced a child protection report stating that the child had a 6 cm by 8 cm haematoma [swelling] on his head, which could not have been sustained ‘accidentally without the parent’s knowledge’.
A CT scan later identified that the child had suffered a fractured skull. The parents were interviewed by the police and said that they had no explanation as to how the injury was caused.
Health Minister Andrew Green applied for the child to be placed in accommodation provided by the States, after the parents refused to allow him to be placed in foster care.
The case was referred to the Royal Court where Dr Lawrenson gave evidence to say that it was a ‘very serious, potentially life-threatening injury, which would have required considerable force, consistent with a fall or blow’.
Advocate Alexander English, acting on behalf of the mother, said that there was no evidence of ‘domestic violence, mental illness or substance abuse’ in the family.
Meanwhile, Advocate Michael Haines, acting for the father, said that the key issue was ‘whether this was an accident or not’.
Commissioner Julian Cylde-Smith, presiding, said that the evidence presented ‘did not suggest that the parents would intentionally injure their child’.
But he added: ‘The child had suffered very significant harm as a consequence of that injury, and it was a question of whether it was safe to return him to the very environment in which that injury had been inexplicably sustained while the matter was further investigated.
‘In my view the nature of the injury was such that there were compelling reasons to intervene.’
The child was placed into foster care while further assessments on him were carried out.
