Scans suggest shaken baby syndrome killed Gainford baby, court told (From The Northern Echo)
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Scans suggest shaken baby syndrome killed Charlee
6:10pm Tuesday 5th February 2013 in News
By Gavin Havery, Reporter (Derwentside & Tyneside)
AN expert medical witness told a jury that the evidence suggested that a five-month-old baby was shaken before he died.
Consultant neuroradiologist Dr Neil Stoodley studied CT and MRI scans taken from Charlee Cameron Clark, who died while in the care of his father, Lee Clark.
The 28-year-old former bar manager, of Neville Close, Gainford, County Durham, is on trial at Newcastle Crown Court. He denies manslaughter.
Dr Stoodley said the CT scan shows evidence of bleeding to the front and to three parts of the back of the baby’s brain.
“The main finding was that the brain itself looked very abnormal in all sections. There are signs of hypoxic ischemic brain injury.”
He said that X-rays show no evidence of fractures to Charlee’s bones and there was no damage to soft tissue.
He said the MRI scan backed up his findings from the CT scan and ruled out the presence of infectious disease or a natural medical condition.
“The pattern of bleeding I have seen in Charlee’s case is not the pattern I would have seen in a meningitis case. It boils down to the pattern of subdural bleeding and the pattern of hypoxic ischemic brain injury.”
Charlee died on March 1, 2011 at the RVI in Newcastle, five days after he was admitted to Darlington Memorial Hospital.
Social services and police were called over doctors fears he may have been shaken.
Concluding Dr Stoodley said: “It is very unusual to see injury to the brain itself as a result of a domestic head trauma.
“The pattern of subdural bleeding that is commonly seen by a shaking mechanism is bleeding at several sites, as we have seen in Charlee’s scan, and hypoxic ischemic brain injury.”
The trial continues.
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