Three years for man who burned and bit baby

A man jailed for punching, burning and biting his girlfriend’s 10-month-old baby told detectives after he read the mother’s Garda interview, “she [the mother] had better hope I get life in prison for this”.

Larry Connors, aged 20, of Shannon, Co Clare, was arrested after the baby was admitted to hospital in January last year.

At Ennis Circuit Court, Connors pleaded guilty to a charge of cruelty of the baby over a three-week period from Dec 15, 2010.

Judge Carroll Moran yesterday sentenced him to three years in prison.

The baby’s mother said Connors had “slapped, kicked, punched and threw my baby around the apartment like he was a toy”.

On the day the baby was admitted to the emergency department at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Detective Garda David Laing said the mother heard the boy crying in the next room at their home.

“She thought the child was hungry. She was making his bottle in the kitchen and when she went to him, she saw Connors with the child in his arms and wiping blood from the baby’s mouth. She reported the child seemed to be going in and out of consciousness.”

When she asked what had happened, he told the court, Connors said the baby had fallen from the pram.

Connors and the boy’s mother brought the child to hospital, & where he told staff the injuries were a result of a fall and a carpet burn.

The matter was referred to the gardaí, who arrested Connors the following day on suspicion of assault causing harm to the child.

The baby was taken into care in Jan 2011 for six months and returned to his mother in July.

Det Garda Laing said that Connors made no admissions of guilt in four separate Garda interviews.

He said the baby’s mother witnessed Connors “pinching the child, kicking the child around the floor, slapping him into the face”.

She was described by gardaí as being “like a prisoner in her own home”.

“If she wanted to leave the house, she would have to ask permission from Larry Connors. He controlled her life and what decisions she made for the baby,” the court was told.

Brian McInerney, defending, said the accused would go forward for the rest of his life with “this conviction and all of the public odium that will be attracted by that conviction”.