One weekend in March 2023, a couple of parents from Skåne seek care for their nine-week-old baby at the central hospital in Kristianstad.
Soon the staff at the emergency room discover that the newborn baby has 23 fractures on, among other things, the upper arm, ribs, wrists and ankles – and sound the alarm.
Fresh fracture
The parents become criminal suspects and the child is immediately taken into the care of social services. In the authority’s decision on care, reference is made to a medical examiner who made the assessment that the injuries have occurred on at least three occasions when one fracture was fresh and the others older.
The coroner also believes that the fractures have been caused by “repeated blunt force and the overall damage picture shows that they have been inflicted by another person”, where blunt force can be “for example blows, pressure, pulling and twisting of limbs”, reports the newspapers.
– The child has had extensive injuries and this has been a very complicated case, says Magdalena Holmberg, senior prosecutor at Southern Skåne’s Prosecutor’s Chamber, to Helsingborgs Dagblad (HD) and Sydsvenskan.
“Tight” baby wrap
The parents, on the other hand, deny abuse and state that the broken bones may have occurred when the baby was carried in a sling that was too “tight”, which may have caused the broken ribs, according to documents that the newspapers have seen.
They also claim that the fractures in the wrists and ankles may have been caused by the baby being lifted out of the wrap. During the police investigation, a filmed reconstruction was therefore made with the parents to examine how they handled the sling and the baby.
– We wanted to assess whether it could have led to these injuries. To see if it could have been a tired and stressed parent who becomes impatient and careless with those little arms and legs, says prosecutor Magdalena Holmberg to the newspapers.
According to the coroner, it is unlikely that the injuries occurred that way due to the large number of fractures, but cannot completely rule it out.
Criminal suspicions have been dropped
Today, the suspicions against the parents have been dropped.
– I cannot prove that the parents are behind the fractures. And if either parent has done it, I can’t prove who has done it in that case. It becomes a difficult situation when the victim cannot testify himself, says Magdalena Holmberg.
But the child is still being looked after and the social service justifies the decision with “regardless of how the injuries occurred, it is an unusually careless handling which in itself is a serious lack of care”, according to the newspapers.
The child’s legal representative has spoken to HD and Sydsvenskan and believes that the child currently has major motor difficulties.