Father found to have shaken girl could care for her again, judge says

A warehouseman found to have shaken his baby daughter and caused a brain injury could be allowed to care for the youngster again if therapy is successful, a senior family court judge said.

The girl, now two, suffered a “catastrophic collapse” when four months old and stopped breathing for around six minutes.

Council social services bosses with responsibility for her welfare placed her in the sole care of her mother and asked Mrs Justice Roberts to decide what had happened.

Mrs Justice Roberts concluded that her father had probably shaken her during a “momentary loss of control”, after analysing the case at a private hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London.

But the judge said, in a written ruling, that the man was still in a relationship with the girl’s mother and was continuing to see the girl.

She said social services staff were doing “therapeutic work” with the couple in the hope that the girl could at some stage live with her parents once more.

The judge said the youngster appeared to have made a “complete recovery” and the prognosis for her future was good.

She said the family could not be identified but said bosses at Warwickshire County Council had asked her to analyse the case.

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