Malaga father jailed for causing serious injuries to his one-and-a-half-month-old baby

According to the ruling, the infant was just one month and 20 days old when his father violently shook him, triggering what is known as shaken baby syndrome.

The incident took place on 2 April 2020, when the defendant was at his home in Malaga city with his partner and their newborn son. According to the ruling, the baby began to cry loudly while resting in his carrycot in the living room. The father went to try to calm him down and, when he was unable to do so, picked the child up and shook him back and forth, causing him serious injuries.

Shaken baby syndrome is a severe medical condition characterised by multiple intracranial haemorrhages, an occipital fracture, generalised cerebral atrophy and external hydrocephalus.

The child required prolonged medical and surgical care over a period of 867 days to make a full recovery, 49 of which were classified as involving serious personal injury. The procedures he had to undergo included three surgeries for the insertion, readjustment and subsequent removal of subduroperitoneal shunts, as well as a series of transfontanellar punctures.

The child is living with permanent after-effects, such as post-concussion syndrome with mild cognitive impairment and various scars. He has a 49-per-cent disability.

In addition to the three-year prison sentence, the provincial court imposed on the father a special disqualification from exercising parental responsibility over his son for three years, a ban on coming within 500 metres of the child or communicating with him by any means for two and a half years and the deprivation of the right to possess firearms for two years.

Furthermore, the parent has to pay compensation to the child for the damages and after-effects in the amount to be determined during the enforcement phase of the ruling and shall bear half of the legal costs.

Given the seriousness of the baby's condition following his admission to the Materno Infantil hospital, the Andalusian regional government's child protection service declared the child to be in a state of neglect and ordered his emergency placement. Temporary custody was subsequently assumed by a maternal aunt within the extended family.

The defence team appealed against the ruling, arguing that the conviction was based on weak and subjective evidence and further contending that there had been an error in the assessment of the evidence in attributing the injuries to the shaking.

The TSJA, however, completely ruled out the possibility that the injuries were accidental or coincidental. It concluded that the provincial court's assessment was a logical response to the expert reports and qualified witness statements.

The ruling states that the injuries were caused not by the birth but by a reckless act, committed in a moment of exasperation on the part of the defendant. The TSJA dismissed the appeal, finding no breach of the right to the presumption of innocence nor any error in the assessment of the evidence.

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