A man disappeared to have sex with his girlfriend – leaving her three-and-a-half year old son in the bath.
*sighs* Luckily, he didn't drown.
He admitted neglect by leaving the boy alone in the bathroom but was found not guilty last month of causing him grievous bodily harm.
Eh..?
The 29-year-old, who we are not naming in order to protect the toddler’s identity, said he’d returned to the bathroom to find the boy had seriously wounded his genitals.
Wait, what..?!
Mitigating, Paul Prior told the court: “What happened to the boy that day must be set into its proper context. This is not a family which was characterised by domestic violence, for example.
“He was step-father rather than father and he had no experience with children, although he had been left alone with the boy on previous occasions they were rare.”
His client had no previous convictions and ‘impressive’ references. They included a letter from barrister Anthony Trace QC, who described the defendant as a ‘fine young man with a great future ahead of him’.
Never mind any of that, how the hell did the kid end up with a serious injury to his genitals if he was alone?
Turns out, because he wasn't...
The mum claimed she had gone to her bedroom to check for messages from her own mother, with whom they were due to go on holiday the following day. She left her son in the bathroom with the defendant, she said. The boy, who had finished his bath and was being towelled dry, had said he needed to go to the toilet.
“I heard screaming and shouting coming from the bathroom. I dropped the phone and ran straight back into the bathroom,” she said.
Her boyfriend, who looked ‘shocked’, was rubbing the boy’s back trying to calm him down.
An accident of the 'he fell on it, officer!' variety?
Doctors said the boy's injury could not have been self-inflicted.
That jury needs to take a good hard look at itself. And so do social services.
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