A BRUTE squeezed a ten-week-old baby until three of its ribs cracked after getting “irritated” with the tot crying.
Dylan Rogers, 27, left the little boy with injuries worse than those from a car crash, a court was told.
2
The first offender, of Balloch, Dunbartonshire, has been caged after a sheriff branded his actions “deplorable”.
Rogers claimed he was trying to wind the baby in March last year but a medical report concluded that had “no ring of truth”.
He searched the web about baby bruises and what happens if guilty of child abuse, Paisley Sheriff Court was told.
Solicitor Bobb Kerr, defending, urged the court to consider an alternative to prison as he highlighted his client’s mental health struggles.
But Sheriff Gillian Craig was not persuaded as she said: “I can’t envisage a more vulnerable victim.”
He told Rogers: “It was your job to protect him from harm, instead you caused him harm.”
“I see no alternative to jail.”
Prosecutor Jason Stark told the court at an August hearing: “Accidental rib fractures in this age group are uncommon, even with trauma such as road accidents, crush injuries or falls.
“They are very highly associated with abusive injury.”
Rogers lost his temper with the baby before the tot’s mum discovered the injuries.
Doctors later found extensive bruising and a cut on his head.
Rogers initially denied knowledge but then admitted it days later, claiming: “I was trying to wind him because he was crying a lot.”
He pleaded guilty to assault and was back in court on Monday for sentencing.
As Rogers was placed in handcuffs and taken down to begin his 18-month stretch, there was a round of applause from the public gallery.
