Admittedly, no one enjoys the sound of crying babies. This man however took the frustration to greater lengths that shocked everyone.
He admitted to fracturing the legs of two newborn babies after squeezing them when he became frustrated with their crying.
According to the New Zealand police summary, the incident occurred in 2018 when the New Zealander ‘grabbed one of the legs of each twin and squeezed hard while twisting their legs slightly’.
Judge Joanna Maze referred the matter to restorative justice and remanded the South Canterbury man to appear in the Timaru District Court again on May 30.
The 30-year admitted to two charges of causing grievous bodily harm with reckless disregard on the babies, who were 21-46 days old at the time.
He described the squeeze as:
FAIR SQUEEZE. IT WAS REALLY HARD BUT REALLY FAST
The defendant admitted to all the facts and stated he had had a stressful day. He also added that:
I WAS FRUSTRATED BY THE BABIES SCREAMING THEIR HEADS OFF.
A few weeks later, an associate was visiting the twins and noticed one child’s legs appeared to looked injured.
The associate called a doctor who visited the home the next day before the babies were taken to the pediatrics department at Timaru Hospital.
A scan of the baby’s leg revealed two healed fractures to the right tibia, one near the top of the bone, and one near the bottom.
Both babies then had a full body scan, which revealed the second child had a healed fracture to the left lower tibia.
One victim has sustained two healed fractures to the right tibia, one on the shaft and one on the distal metaphysis of the tibia
The other had sustained a healing fracture to the distal metaphysis on the left tibia.