Mum was more likely to injure girl, defence says in shaken baby trial

If it was the father, the baby's mum, who could hear the baby monitor in the next room, would have heard the sound of an impact and the baby's cry in response.

There was no sound because the father didn't hurt her, Defence barrister Paul Rosser, KC, told Newcastle District Court on Monday.

Closing addresses were delivered in the case of the baby's father, who can only be identified as GP, who is accused of inflicting grievous bodily harm on his daughter, and nearing the end of a judge-alone trial.

"There is perhaps an explanation for the failure of anyone to report the sound of such an injury and that's this," Mr Rosser said.

EARLIER IN THE TRIAL:

"When the impact was occasioned it was at a time that the only person in the main bedroom was asleep and could not hear it, and we know that person could not be (the mother) who said she could hear everything.

"She's not the one that's asleep in the other bedroom ... at the time the injury was inflicted on the child...

"The accused was asleep in his bed. We don't know and we can't say when this happened, what we can say is that it could have happened very shortly before we woke up, it could fall within any window that the medical evidence leaves open, we can't know that, what we can know is that the sound that should have been heard wasn't heard, or at least wasn't heard on the monitor by any person."

She did something to the baby, she left the baby in bed, and she allowed the accused to be the one that found her in the morning, Mr Rosser said.

"Of the two adults in the house and what you know about them, she is objectively more likely to be the candidate."

The prosecution, however, says it was the father, that he shook the baby violently after going in to get her out of bed that morning.

In the lead up to the 12th, there was "a bit going on", Crown prosecutor Jillian Kelton said.

"He felt like he was failing as a provider and as a partner. In his text message on August 18, he says: 'I am sorry I can't give you everything you want. I feel crap because we don't have our own house we don't have a good family car. I feel like I'm a let down, sorry', and that was before he left work."

"It can be readily inferred that that feeling of not being an adequate provider was amplified when he left work where he was earning $1000 a week

"He described having a sense the medical staff looked down on him for living in that street ... and that he was feeling shame, and you might think he wasn't proud of living there."

The evidence included statements from him to police such as "we don't really have any money, we literally just stay home, we don't do anything"; and "We just stay home, we pay rent, might as well use it".

There was a wedding being planned, the mother having gone into Newcastle to try on wedding dresses two days earlier; Christmas was coming up, and their toddlers was "hard work", Ms Kelton said.

"This is the first time he is at the coal face that (the mother) has been at for so long ... and we know that he bottles things up.

"As of the twelfth of December, this was a young man under significant pressure, evidence you can consider as to his state of mind at that time.

"He was stressed, and this incident only took seconds."

As well as paraplegia, the little girl, who turns four on May 5, lives with cerebral palsy, an intellectual disability, and cognitive, visual and speech issues.

She and her older sister were removed from her parents' care in January, 2021.