Cavan nanny trial hears toddler was shaken and slammed

A US court has heard that a toddler, prosecutors claim was murdered by a Cavan woman, died from abusive head injuries suffered on the same day the child was hospitalised.

Lavey native Aisling McCarthy Brady is accused of murdering one-year-old Rehma Sabir on January 14 of last year at the Sabir in a Boston suburb, where the nanny was working.

Ms McCarthy Brady denies the charge.

“I believe she was shaken and slammed,’’ Dr Alice Newton told Judge Maureen Hogan of the baby's death.

Judge Hogan has yet to decide to allow the evidence of the doctor at the October trial.

Dr Newton told Middlesex Superior Court that her diagnosis is based on medical analysis and reports on the toddler's behaviour from her mother and Ms McCarthy, the day after the one year old died, reports The Irish Independent.

The prosecution claim that the toddler was in the sole care of Ms McCarthy Brady when she suffered devastating injuries, including blunt force trauma to the head.

Her lawyers have accused the prosecution of failing to look at other diagnoses, despite the fact that the baby was sick much of her life and suffered gastrointestinal problems, failed to gain weight and had a bleeding disorder.

In papers previously filed with the court, lawyers for Ms McCarthy also say their client was accused of inflicting vertebral fractures, but it was later established that the injuries were three to four weeks old and occurred when the child was travelling with her mother in Pakistan.

Dr Newton was working at Boston Children’s Hospital as the leader of the child protection program when baby Rehma died.

The paediatrician and Harvard professor confirmed the diagnosis that she had previously given to a grand jury, leading to the Cavan woman’s indictment, that she believed Rehma’s brain injuries were inflicted between 3.30-4pm on January 14.

“After sustaining such a severe brain injury there is not an interval or period where children can look normal and then get very sick,” concluding that she had died from “blunt force trauma.”

“It is my opinion that Rehma was subjected to violent force, violent shaking and blunt force trauma such would be viewed by a spectator to be completely unreasonable handling of an infant,” she said.

Under cross examination from defence lawyer Melinda Thompson, Dr Newton said older fractures suffered by the baby didn’t change her conclusion that she had died from brain trauma.

When asked why she had not taken notes on the night of Rehma’s admission, Dr Newton told the court that things had happened “so quickly and intensely”.

Ms McCarthy Brady has been in jail in the US since her January 2013 arrest.