Baby taken from care of parents after suffering fractured skull can go home
A baby taken from his parents’ care after suffering a fractured skull when less than two weeks old is set to return home in time for Christmas.
The boy, who is now about six months old, was placed with relatives while the cause of his injury was investigated.
Council social services bosses said either the baby’s mother or father had hurt him.
But a family court judge said they have not proved their case.
Judge Martin Dancey, who analysed evidence at a recent family court hearing in Bournemouth, Dorset, has ruled that the boy, who had made a “full recovery”, should return to his parents’ care.
The judge, who oversaw a private hearing, outlined detail of the case in a written ruling published online.
He said Dorset Council was the local authority involved but that the baby could not be identified in media reports.
Judge Dancey said the cause of the boy’s injury was unclear.
“The doctors say it could equally easily have been an accident as anything else,” the judge said in his ruling.
“It is for the local authority to show it was not an accident and that the parents have done something wrong, causing the injury.”
The judge added: “I have decided that the local authority have not shown that the injury to (the baby) was the parents’ fault.”
He said the boy’s parents, who has been assessed by social workers, were in a “loving and committed relationship”.
“There is no domestic abuse,” he said.
“They don’t use drugs or alcohol.”
The judge added: “The parenting assessment shows they are good and careful parents.”
He went on: “There is nothing to suggest the parents would deliberately harm (their son) or be careless in how they looked after him.”
Judge Dancey said the boy’s father, who is in his 20s, had problems in childhood.
But the judge said those problems seemed to be to “largely behind him”.
He said he had concluded that the baby could go home.
The plan was that the little boy would be returned to his parents’ care, in a “planned way”, before Christmas.
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