A Fife mother wept in court as she described the moment social workers stopped her from seeing her three week old son.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Graham, who is accused of shaking and throwing the baby during an assault in April 2014.
After examination, the baby was found to have a fractured skull and broken ribs.
Graham, 27, is on trial by jury at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court.
He denies squeezing the baby’s torso, repeatedly shaking him and throwing him on to a hard surface, to his severe injury and to the danger of his life, at an address in Fife between April 20 and April 28, 2014.
Solicitor advocate Chris Fyffe, who is representing Graham, has launched a special defence of incrimination on behalf of his client.
The court heard the woman took her son to the doctor on April 28, 2014, after noticing redness and swelling around his left eye.
Suspecting an eye infection, the doctor referred the baby to the children’s department at Victoria Hospital for further tests.
Following a CT scan, an extensive fracture was discovered on the left side of the baby’s skull.
And he was found to have broken ribs following a subsequent bone survey carried out at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh.
A forensic medical examination of the child was carried out on April 29, 2014, in the presence of a police officer.
On the same day a Child Protection Order was issued, preventing the woman from having unsupervised contact with her baby.
The child’s mother told depute fiscal Ronnie Hay that on the evening of April 29 she was told she could not see her son.
Mr Hay asked her how she felt about that and she broke down in tears.
She said: “It was horrendous. I can’t even put it into words.”
The court heard that the baby had been treated in intensive care after a difficult birth.
He was kept in hospital for eight days after he was born.
The trial before Sheriff Thornton continues.
