What appeared to be a slap mark on a toddler’s face was ‘something all paediatricians have seen before’, a doctor told Oxford jurors.

The boy, who we are not naming, was brought into hospital by his parents in January 2019 with injuries to his face and neck.

They included distinctive lines of bruising to his cheek. Dr Janet Craze, the treating clinician, told jurors at Oxford Crown Court this week that the bruising looked to her like a slap mark.

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She said: “That is something, sadly, all paediatricians have seen before.”

The boy’s father, Dwayne Gordon, 34, of Kingsland Gardens, Northampton, denies wounding with intent, grievous bodily harm, causing actual bodily harm and child neglect.

The court heard that the day before the boy was brought into hospital he was said to have been under his father’s care at the mother’s home in Oxford when he fell with his bottle or beaker in his mouth.

However, the doctors’ concerns about the injuries led them to commission full blood tests and x-rays.

Giving evidence on Wednesday, paediatrician Dr Janet Craze said the blood tests that ruled out the option that the boy suffered from a condition that would mean he bruised easily.

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Extensive x-rays were undertaken, which revealed fractures in both lower arms. One was consistent with a ‘strike’ to the top of the wrist although the injuries were sometimes seen in adults and older children who put out their arms to protect themselves in a fall. The bones in his two arms had been fractured at different times, tests showed.

The boy’s parents could not recall him having a fall or suffering another injury in the weeks before his hospital admission that could have resulted in his broken arm.

The doctor noted that children had different pain thresholds, but told the jury she would have expected there to have been ‘some pain’.

She considered a third option, spelling it out: “That somebody had inflicted that injury on him.”

Going through the list of injuries she had noted on the boy, she said a bruise on his forehead was consistent with the mother’s account of him striking his head on a bedpost and a mark around his mouth could have been caused by his beaker as he fell with it in his mouth.

But she said distinctive bruises on his cheek looked ‘exactly’ like a slap mark.

“That is something, sadly, all paediatricians have seen before,” she said.

The doctor told the court that she had reviewed the case with other paediatricians and ‘everybody’ had said it looked like a slap.

The trial continues.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward