Medical evidence differs in baby shaking trial

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A jury must sort through differing opinions by medical experts as it considers its verdict tomorrow in what the crown describes as a case of shaken baby syndrome. Medical professionals have spent two days putting their views to the Christchurch District Court jury in the trial of Christopher Dean Matthews. The 30-year-old denies a representative charge of causing grievous bodily harm to his three-month-old daughter Caitlin. The crown has sought to prove that Matthews shook the child causing a subdural haemorrhage, brain injury, and retinal bleeding. The child had seizures on the day she was taken to hospital in September 2005. The jury has heard four days of evidence. Closing addresses by crown prosecutor Kerryn Beaton and defence counsel Garry Collin will be delivered tomorrow before Judge Philip Moran sums up and sends the jury out to consider its verdict. Paediatric neurologist Dr Paul Shillito told the court he believed the brain injury to the baby could not have been an accident and was most likely caused by shaking. But he said the incidents of shaking as described in evidence did not involve sufficient force to cause the injury. He did not believe the baby's injuries on the day she was taken to hospital had been caused by an acute enlargement of a subdural brain injury. The court was told the original injury would have been caused at least two to three weeks before. He believed an incident involving stopping breathing had occurred earlier that day. But forensic pathologist Professor James Ferris, called by the defence, suggested Dr Shillito was speculating in his evidence. "He may be right, but there has to be a foundation."