Thug jailed for inflicting life changing injuries on baby

A thug who left a baby girl badly brain damaged – after getting “stressed” playing his Xbox has been jailed for almost five years.

Dale Thomson violently shook the nine-month old child while apparently looking after her in April this year.

A judge heard how the tiny victim will suffer “lifelong implications” as a result of the horror attack.

Thomson, formerly of Irvine, turned on the child having years earlier lashed out at a one month old boy because he woke up during the night.

The crime emerged as the 27 year-old storeman appeared at the High Court in Glasgow.

He pled guilty to attacking the girl to her severe injury, permanent impairment and danger of her life at a flat in Dundee.

Thomson also admitted assaulting the baby boy at another house in the city in October 2010.

Yesterday (Fri) Judge Lord Burns jailed Thomson for four years and eight months, and ordered he will be supervised for three years on his release from prison.

Passing sentence he told him: "You pled guilty to two charges of assaulting very young children, separated by about eight years.

"You knew yourself to be somebody who could lose control of his temper and that happened in October 2010 and again in April 2018."

He added: "So far as your culpability is concerned, your self awareness of your own anger management problem seems to me to be an aggravating factor here.

"You accept you deliberately assaulted this child in April and violently shook her causing her head to move rapidly back and forth in such a way a way that could have killed her."

The court heard Thomson had been living in Dundee having moved from Irvine.

He had been looking after the girl on April 1 this year after her mum went to work.

He spent time that day playing an Xbox game online with a teenage boy while the child was asleep.

Prosecutor Paul Kearney said Thomson and the girl's mum went on to exchange text messages.

Mr Kearney: “He mentioned that the game – which involved trying to complete certain 'missions' – was stressful.”

The woman went on to state he looked “raging” after he sent her a photo of him playing the console.

She urged him not to play the game and asked him “not to take his feelings out on others” or she would switch it off on returning home.

Mr Kearney said the exact time of the assault was not known.

Around 2.55pm, texts suggested “everything appeared well” with Thomson and the child.

But, by 3.42pm, Thomson was making a 999 call insisting the girl's eyes were “rolling” and that she was not breathing.

The child was rushed to hospital as her relatives were alerted.

Thomson went to claim he had found the girl “floppy” in her cot.

The court heard the child suffered seizures in hospital.

Medics thought she may have meningitis after Thomsonsaid she recently had a virus.

She was transferred to Edinburgh's Sick Children's Hospital where it was instead discovered she had bleeding on the brain.

This was “indicative of non accidental injury”.

Thomson was later quizzed by police. He was described as “angry and very agitated”.

He “strongly denied” hurting the girl and moaned he was being “unfairly treated”.

Thomson was eventually arrested – but insisted police were “corrupt”.

Despite his initial denials, Thomson went on to blurt out: “I know I've got a lot of time ahead of me in jail.

“I've nobody to blame bar myself.”

Prosecutor Mr Kearney said it was agreed that Thomson“violently shook” the girl causing her head to “rapidly” go back and forwards.

The advocate depute added: “The injury...was severe. It will have lifelong implications impacting on her movement, learning, speech and vision.”

The child continues to need “high levels of care” and attends a specialist unit at hospital every day.

The court was told today/yesterday that, in the weeks before the attack, Thomson was apparently not sleeping well and “felt that he was not coping”.

But, it emerged Thomson had already been violent towards a young child.

In October 2010, he had been staying at a flat in Dundee with a baby boy and his mum.

The child woke up crying early one morning – before a raging Thomson grabbed him from the seat he was in.

He yelled: “Do you want to go to f** sleep. I don't know what's the f** wrong with you.”

The baby's mum clocked what happened.

Mr Kearney: “She described it as being done 'with some force – almost in kind of dropping motion. It had been done without supporting the (child's) head.”

The mum called police as Thomson claimed he was sorry and that it was “just frustration”.

He also said he was “out of order”.

Defence counsel Emma Toner said the incident was "brought about as a result of a momentary loss of control by Mr Thomson".

She said : "Mr Thomson's position is whilst he intended to cause no harm whatsoever to this child, he simply was not thinking rationally or calmly and briefly lost control as he did and acted as he did."

Miss Toner said Thomson is "flooded with guilt and remorse".