SQ24C50017 - [2025] EWHC 2078 (Fam)

The M made a number of statements and gave oral evidence for a day. I have summarised the key parts of her narrative evidence above.

In my assessment, she was largely truthful on primary facts. However, there was a very consistent theme of her seeking to minimise her responsibility, find excuses for her choices and to paint herself in a favourable light.

The M was absolutely clear that she had never injured P and, in her written evidence, that she had never seen the F injuring P. She also said that she had never seen P do something which then led to a corresponding bruise. The M had said to the police that she did not think P could hit himself hard enough to cause a bruise.

Throughout her written evidence the M had not accepted that the F had injured P. However, on the third day of the trial, when the F changed his story about the Firestick incident on 21 April, the M changed her position and said that she thought the F had shaken P. She said that she wanted to hear the oral evidence of the experts to see if they changed their evidence. The M said she had believed the F’s explanation because he seemed so sure. She said she felt “betrayed and angry” because she had given the F ample opportunity to be open and honest with her. The M said that she and the F had separated that evening, and she was no longer in a relationship with him.

I have to say that this change of position came astonishingly late, given the overwhelming evidence that the F had caused P’s injuries, which must have been even more overwhelming to the M who was in the house.

It was a feature of the M’s evidence that she seemed considerably more concerned about the fact that the F had lied to her, rather than her failure to protect P and having left him in a situation where he could easily have died.

It was clear from the M’s evidence that she knew that the F became frustrated with P. She accepted that sometimes P’s crying “overwhelmed him”. On at least one occasion the M accepted hearing the F swear at P and she had said to him that P “was not purposefully being annoying”. The M had said to the police that it got to the point where “she didn’t want to go upstairs” because “there was something there”. On one occasion the M had heard what she thought was the F slapping P, but when the F denied it she said she believed him.

The M said when she challenged the F about the injuries, he would get defensive and ask her what she was insinuating. One of the oddities about her evidence was that she seemed to feel that if the F was not deliberately harming P then that was what really mattered. The extremely obvious fact that the F was harming P, whether deliberately or not, seems to have been something that she was not prepared to accept until exceptionally late in the day.

The most obvious example of at best wilful blindness on the M’s behalf was the mouth injury on 19 March, which I set out in detail above. The M was in the kitchen and must have heard P crying and twice went and helped put the bottle in his mouth. She said she was “panicking and teary”, but she said there was no moment when she thought the F had been rough with P. The M said she had never thought that the F had injured P by over vigorous force feeding. She said in her June 2024 statement that she thought the injuries had been caused by P putting his hand in his mouth. In my judgement the M knew that the F had caused those injuries by forcing the bottle into P’s mouth. Whether she “forgave” that because she thought he did not do it deliberately, is largely irrelevant. The M knew the child was at risk of serious injury. Further, the M chose not to take P to the doctor, even though he had been bleeding copiously from his mouth.

The M said that she had not realised until she saw the photos how often P had injuries. But she then sought to minimise the photos, or at least her responsibility, by saying that they did not show a true picture. When asked about each bruise the M said she hadn’t caused them and she didn’t know how they had been caused.

The M accepted that by 19 April she was starting to have doubts in her mind about the F’s explanations not making sense. She said she had started to ask the F to do less with P. The M accepted that she had never seen P’s arms flailing and him bruising himself. On 18 April, when there was an injury to P’s mouth when the F was feeding him, she said she thought the F had put the bottle in too hard but didn’t think that he had done so purposely or out of frustration.

I asked the M what she had done at this stage to protect P. Her answer was that she didn’t think that she was not protecting him. I note that in the closing submissions Ms Burnell said the M accepted that she “grossly failed to protect P”, but that is not what the M herself said in evidence.

After the Firestick incident on 21 April, the M said she had started to question the entirety of the F’s explanations, but the F was very angry with her for asking questions.

The F was not an impressive witness. He struggled to make eye contact and fell back quite quickly on saying he could not remember particular incidents.

The F accepted that he had struggled to come to terms with the idea that he would be a father and he was not fully prepared for the reality.

The F accepted that once P was born he would sometimes find it hard to settle him, and the F found that upsetting and would sometimes ask the M to come home because he was worried he couldn’t get P to settle. Although the F accepted these points, I think that he was minimising these difficulties. The text messages suggest a higher level of frustration and difficulty with the F coping with P than he was prepared to accept.

The F accepted that he was selfish in making choices to go the pub after work rather than go home and help the M.

The F said that he had never seen the M getting cross or angry with P and he had never seen her harming P in any way.

The F was asked a large number of questions about the mouth injuries on 19 March. As I have said above, he eventually accepted that he had been too aggressive in giving P the bottle. In my view he only said this because, having heard Professor Fleming’s evidence, he had no realistic alternative.

The F was very unclear about how all the bruises were caused, save for referring to P’s arms flailing around. He did however say that once or twice he might have handled P “in the wrong way”.

I have set out above the F’s version of events in respect to the Firestick incident.

The F said that the M had challenged him on a number of occasions about the injuries but it did not change anything, and P continued at times to be left in his sole care.

The F’s evidence in respect to the 8 May index injury was that the M had gone out to get cannabis at about 8pm. He decided, for the first time ever, to take P upstairs and put him to bed whilst the M was out. He lay P on the bed at which point he went floppy and his eyes rolled back. In oral evidence the F said he then picked P up and might have shaken him, perhaps once, in order to bring him back into full consciousness. This was the first time that the F had admitted to shaking P, but said that it was after P became ill.

The F’s evidence was not believable. The medical evidence is clear that there was no reason for P to have become ill that evening other than that he was shaken. The F has now accepted that he did shake P. What really happened that evening is not possible to know.

PA, gave oral evidence. The LA did not proceed with its case that she had failed to protect P. She had known that there were problems in the parents’ relationship. However, she had had no idea that P was being injured. Although she saw P on occasions, she did not notice bruises on him. I accept she was a truthful witness and she had no reason to realise what was happening in the household.

MGM, gave evidence for a day. Nobody suggests that she caused any of the injuries. She cared for P about once per week after the first two weeks when the F was on paternity leave, normally on a Thursday or Friday. She was also in very frequent electronic communication with the M.

MGM said that the M never spoke to her about the problems the parents were having in the relationship; nor about the money worries; nor the degree to which the M was struggling with the F’s lack of help with P.

MGM said that throughout the period from P’s birth to the index injury, she was also having to help her elderly parents, and particularly her father who was unwell. She suggested, and I accept this, that that may form part of the reason why she did not pick up how very badly things were going wrong between the M and the F, and the signs of P being injured. She suggested that it may have been why the M didn’t confide in her, not wanting to place additional burdens on MGM. I note that M and MGF were at pains to excuse the M’s failure to seek support from them. They both said this was the M trying to protect them, rather than acknowledging that the M was actively deceiving them, whilst leaving P to be injured by the F.

MGM said that although she had seen various injuries, including the video of P’s mouth on 19 March, a number of bruises and the photo of the bruising following the Firestick incident, she always accepted the M’s explanations. This included accepting that P was bruising himself, despite the fact that she had never seen this happen.

The MGF, also gave written and oral evidence. He had seen much less of P than his wife, and he said that he had no suspicions that P was being mistreated by either of the parents. He said that he had no idea that there were problems in the parents’ relationship, or that the M was as stressed and unhappy as was truly the case.

He accepted that he and M had failed to protect P but said that he had nothing to alert him to what was really happening in the household.

I will return to his and MGM’s evidence in my conclusions.