Irish nanny accused of fatally injuring baby in US
Aisling McCarthy Brady, aged 34 and believed to be from Co Cavan, had her passport removed after she was arrested on a charge of assault and battery causing substantial bodily injury. She appeared in a Boston court yesterday and prosecutors said more serious charges may follow.
According to prosecutors, baby Rehma Sabir suffered “massive brain swelling” after an assault on Jan 14. She died in hospital two days later.
The case will bring back memories in Cambridge of the Louise Woodward case in 1997 which gripped both sides of the Atlantic. Woodward then 19, was an English au pair who was convicted of second- degree murder, though that was reduced days later to involuntary manslaughter by the presiding judge.
Middlesex district attorney Gerard Leone told the Boston Herald: “This is an extremely troubling case, where we allege the defendant violently assaulted a one-year-old child, causing a devastating head injury and broken bones.”
The newspaper reports that Cambridge police went to an address on the afternoon of Jan 14, where they found the baby girl unresponsive, breathing but unconscious.
A neighbour said Ms McCarthy Brady had lived in the building for five years and is originally from Ireland.
In court yesterday, the US immigration and customs enforcement agency said Ms McCarthy Brady entered the US from Dublin on Aug 11, 2002, under an international agreement that allows visitors to stay in the country for 90 days without a visa or other immigration documentation.
Doctors at the hospital said the baby girl was suffering from sub-dural and retinal haemorrhaging and cerebral swelling. The district attorney’s office said she had also suffered numerous bone fractures that were mid-healing.
The office claimed the infant was in the sole care of the nanny when she sustained the injuries which prosecutors said were “consistent with abusive head trauma”.
