Judge jails parents of 3-month-old baby for 37 months

The parents of a three-month-old baby who suffered three broken ribs and whose body was covered in bruises were handed jail sentences totalling 37 months on Friday.

Imposing sentences of 16 months and 21 months on the baby’s mother and father respectively, Judge Patrick Lynch QC told Craigavon Crown Court in Co Armagh the pair were guilty of the “deliberate and persistent avoidance of the care plans” which had been put in place to protect the boy.

Ordering them to serve half their sentences in jail and half on licence, the judge warned them that, given their admissions, they would also be “placed on the children’s barred list”.

The defendants, who cannot be identified to protect the identity of their son, had earlier admitted to causing or allowing a child to suffer serious physical injury on a date between November 25th and 28th, 2017 in that they “either caused the serious physical harm, or were or ought to have been aware of the risk and failed to take such steps” to avoid any such risk.

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The judge revealed how the infant had been put on the child protection register from birth with orders that the mother and baby had to live with a relative. “The two accused took the decision to deliberately and systematically flout those measures,” said the judge.

He told the pair he was imposing different sentences on them because while they were equally culpable, she had pleaded guilty two years before he had.