Case No. ZE22C50109

22.The local authority’s primary position is that S’s injuries were inflicted by one or both of his parents. The local authority does not suggest that either parent acted deliberately or maliciously. Its case is that the most likely cause of each injury was a build-up of anger or frustration on the part of one of the parents, leading to a momentary loss of control. The local authority’s case is that there is insufficient evidence to identify which of the parents perpetrated the injuries. 23.The local authority also seeks a finding that the parents neglected their children on three separate occasions, identified by the parents themselves, when they were left together unsupervised in a room of the home. I had originally understood this finding to be sought in the alternative, in the event that I made a finding that S’s injuries were caused during these periods, but having reviewed the threshold document during the course of submissions I see that this is in fact a free-standing allegation of neglect, which the local authority is seeking irrespective of my findings about the injuries.24.The parents deny inflicting S’s injuries. They each say that they were unaware that S had sustained any injury until the admission to hospital on 23 April 2022, and that they cannot identify with any certainty any occasion when any of the injuries occurred. There are two potential explanations for the injuries which have been put forward on their behalf, although neither is advanced as a positive case.25.The first is that the injuries may have been caused by one or other of S’s parents rolling onto him in bed (S slept in between his parents, in their bed). The second is that S may have been injured during one or more of the brief periods when he and T were left together unsupervised in the same room. 26.The children’s guardian does not seek a positive finding. On her behalf, however, Ms Cheetham has drawn my attention to aspects of the evidence which the guardian considers to be of particular relevance. It is probably fair to say that the submissions on behalf of the guardian pointed towards a finding of inflicted injury; indeed, as I will explain later, Ms Cheetham suggested that at least one of the potential alternative explanations put forward on behalf of the parents was so unlikely that it could be definitively ruled out. Similarly, while careful to emphasise that the guardian was not seeking a finding against either parent, Ms Cheetham highlighted some of the evidence which might tend to suggest that the father rather than the mother was responsible, and reminded the court of the advantages of identifying a perpetrator where it is possible to do so.