Man and woman arrested over probe into baby’s death

A MAN and a woman have been arrested by gardaí investigating the death of a 10-day-old infant from Co Meath.

The baby boy, named locally as John McCarthy from Navan, died a week ago today just hours after being brought to hospital with extremely serious injuries.

Sources confirmed he had sustained head injuries and a fractured arm. The injuries are understood to be similar to those that might be suffered in a fall from a height.

The woman was arrested on suspicion of assault and the man on suspicion of withholding information from gardaí. Both were taken into custody last night.

Gardaí are satisfied the injuries were sustained in a house in Lusk in north Co Dublin.

The boy had gone there on the Thursday evening and his parents and a group of other adults were having a social gathering there. A number of other children were also in the house.

It’s understood that conflicting accounts of what happened in the hours leading up to the child’s death were given to gardaí.

A team from the Garda Technical Bureau spent four days examining the house.

Their findings – and those of state pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy who carried out a postmortem on the baby – led to the decision of gardaí last night to make the arrests.

It was clear to staff at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital that his injuries were life threatening and around 2am last Friday, some two hours after being brought to the Emergency Department he died.

He had been born in the same hospital. .

The man arrested is being questioned at Whitehall Garda Station, and the woman is being questioned at Balbriggan.