A Dunfermline babysitter was jailed for eight-and-a-half years after attempting to murder a five-month-old, then blaming the child’s mother for the attack.
Kimberly Dow inflicted life-threatening injuries on the defenceless little boy in a sustained assault when she was supposed to be looking after him.
Sentencing judge Lady Ross, at the High Court in Edinburgh, said: “You committed a very serious offence against a vulnerable infant in your care.
“You have tried to evade, or at least minimise, responsibility.
“Your actions are unexplained and quite possibly inexplicable.”
The judge said Dow, 34, has shown no concern, then or since, for the welfare of the baby.
She added the injuries inflicted could have caused death and there is no clear information about the long-term prognosis for the young victim.
She said: “He had been entrusted to your care for an overnight stay – you were supposed to look after him but instead you assaulted him.”
Shook baby violently
Dow, of Maitland Street, Dunfermline, denied the March 17 2022 attempted murder during a trial last month and lodged a special defence claiming if the offence was committed it was not by her but by the child’s mother.
However, a jury found her guilty of shaking him and inflicting trauma to his head and causing injury to his head by means unknown to the prosecutor to his severe injury and to the danger of his life.
Advocate depute Michelle Brannagan told jurors there was evidence of a single occasion when the victim suffered injury and it was when he was in the care of Dow.
When the baby was taken to hospital after the attack he was found to have 15 distinct and separate bruises to his face.
He also had retinal haemorrhages in both eyes, which an expert said were too numerous to count.
The baby had significant haemorrhaging around the brain, so extensive and in so many areas, it was likely the child suffered a prolonged period of shaking.
Ms Brannagan told the jury: “I suggest an overwhelming picture comes into painfully sharp focus.
“This was no accident, someone hurt him.”
The prosecutor said the evidence suggested the child was uninjured and behaving normally when he was dropped off at Dow’s home.
She said the incrimination of the mother was “a red herring” without “a single piece of evidence” to support it.
Call for mum
Dow, who had previously cared for the child without any issues, maintained she put him on a couch and left briefly but when she returned he had fallen.
The mother said she tried and failed to make contact with Dow – who had asked to care of the child that night – then received a message telling her to hurry back as he was screaming and “tensing” his body.
The mother said Dow tried to apologise when they met.
The child and his mother cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Defence solicitor advocate Gordon Martin said his client had suffered adverse childhood experiences of her own and weaned herself off drugs later in life.
He told the court: “There is no suggestion that she is someone who would reoffend, provided she manages to remain drug free.”
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