A Hawick man did not tell medical staff he had forcibly removed a child from a baby chair after X-rays revealed some 12 hours later that the youngster had a broken leg.
Robert McGregor, 29, failed to seek medical attention for the child, and it was a fortnight later, during a police interview, that he confessed to what had happened, Jedburgh Sheriff Court heard on Friday.
McGregor appeared on indictment and admitted wilfully neglecting a child and failing to seek medical care at a house in the Borders on September 20, 2011.
Medical staff, trying to establish what was wrong with the baby, found he had a fractured femur.
The accused said he had been trying to sleep on a couch when the baby started crying.
He was said to be “agitated”, “frustrated” and “tired” when he grabbed the child with both hands around the body to pull him out of the bouncing baby chair, but one of his legs got trapped and the chair fell to the ground.
The accused did not mention the baby’s leg being hurt when the mother returned to find the boy crying.
The child was “crying and inconsolable” when taken to a doctor, but McGregor again failed to mention the earlier incident.
The doctor suspected colic as the baby kept lifting his knees.
Later in the evening, the baby remained unsettled, screaming when his leg was touched.
Depute procurator fiscal Kate McGarvey told Jedburgh Sheriff Court on Friday that NHS24 was contacted and paramedics called at the house at 12.30pm when again the accused failed to mention what had happened earlier.
At Borders General Hospital, X-rays revealed a broken leg. “The mother was in shock and very upset about it,” added Ms McGarvey. The child spent three weeks in hospital.
When the accused was interviewed by police the next day, he did not mention the baby’s leg had been trapped in the bouncy chair.
In a further interview, he admitted he had picked up the baby “a bit too hard, but did not hurt him on purpose”.
Defending, Matt Jackson said his client was “frustrated” and “sleep deprived”, and the injury had been an accident.
“None of this would have happened if he had phoned an ambulance at the time,” he added.
Sheriff Derrick McIntyre deferred sentence until March 22 for reports.