A man was cleared of injuring toddler’s genitals at bath time.

But the man, who we are not naming in order to protect the identity of his alleged victim, will be sentenced next month – having earlier admitted child neglect by leaving the child in the bathroom as he disappeared to have sex with the tot’s mum.

During the week-long trial at Oxford Crown Court, jurors heard that the 29-year-old defendant and his then girlfriend, the boy’s mother, had bathed the child after watching cartoons with him in June 2018.

The mum claimed she had gone to her bedroom to check for messages from her own mother, with whom they were due to go on holiday the following day. She left her son in the bathroom with the defendant, she said. The boy, who had finished his bath and was being towelled dry, had said he needed to go to the toilet.

“I heard screaming and shouting coming from the bathroom. I dropped the phone and ran straight back into the bathroom,” she said. Her boyfriend, who looked ‘shocked’, was rubbing the boy’s back trying to calm him down.

The mum added that there was “blood everywhere”.

Doctors recorded that the boy, who had experienced health problems with the area previously, had two deep lacerations to his genitals. The injury could not have been caused by the boy, jurors were told.

The defendant said he and his then girlfriend had left the boy in the bathroom as they had sex in a bedroom next door. The man, who admitted lying to police about leaving the boy alone, said he did not know how the boy had injured himself.

The former partner denied claims that they’d left the boy alone.

She was quizzed by defence barrister Paul Prior about a text sent to her boyfriend after the incident, when she was at the Horton Hospital with the boy, in which she told him to ‘tell the story of what happened with us bathing [the child]’. “I guess it was the wrong choice of words at the time” she said.

Closing the defence case to the jury, Mr Prior said his client had lied ‘in an effort to keep his family together’ after previous run-ins with social services.

The defendant, who is from Leicestershire, was found not guilty of wounding and wounding with intent. He will return to court on December 22 for sentence.

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