A man accused of putting a child in a tumble dryer and switching it on admitted to police he bit the girl on the arm after she hit him with an electronic cigarette.
Thomas Dunn, 25, said he had been playing with the 13-month-old, nibbling her toes, legs and arms and she had been holding the vape when she struck him with it.
In a police interview Dunn claimed he “must have moved” when the mark appeared on the girl’s arm after she tried to put the e-cigarette in his mouth.
In another interview on January 12, 2018, Detective Sergeant Graham Lee asked him to explain the mark.
He said “oh the bite”, and again explained that he had been playing with the girl.
He said her facial injuries had been caused by her falling in his hallway. Dunn said he had been in the kitchen when he heard a loud thud and found her in the hallway lying face down and limp.
DS Lee told him doctors, paediatricians and a radiographer said the two skull fractures must have come from “two massive blows.”
Asked how the injuries occurred, Dunn replied: “I don’t know. I’ve not banged her head off anything, even if it was an accident I would have said.”
Dunn, of Comrie Crescent, Hamilton, is accused of assaulting the baby to severe injury and to the danger of her life between December 18 2017 and January 8 2018 at an address in Arbroath.
As well as allegedly putting her in a tumble dryer before turning the appliance on, he is said to have placed his hand over her mouth and restricted her breathing, struck her on the head and body, repeatedly struck her against an unknown object and bitten her.
Dunn is further alleged to have repeatedly assaulted another baby. It is claimed he put his hand over the boy’s mouth and nose and pinched, restricting his breathing between April 3 2015 and January 8 2018.
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