THE JURY at Swansea Crown Court has heard police interviews with a man accused of physically and sexually assaulting a baby who was taken to Glangwili Hospital in the early hours of January 24, 2021.

Christopher Phillips, aged 34, of Kiln Park, Burton, denies two offences of sexual assault by penetration, one count of assault causing actual bodily harm, and four counts of inflicting grievous bodily harm.

The baby’s mother – who cannot be named to protect the child’s identity – denies child cruelty and allowing the child to suffer serious physical harm.

Interviews read to the court

Prosecutor Joshua Scouller read to the jury the transcript of Phillips’ initial interview with Dyfed-Powys Police.

Officers asked: “Are you responsible for causing these injuries?”

“I’m not, no,” Phillips replied.

He added: “When I’m there, she’s always with me… ninety-five per cent of the time she’s in the room.”

Phillips suggested the baby had been “crying more” because of an ear problem during the week before hospital admission. He said the child also had a “nappy rash” and blood in the nappy, but he did not notice anything else that concerned him.

The defendant was asked about a message the mother had sent him asking whether he had bumped the child’s head. A later CT scan found a fractured skull and a bleed on the brain.

Phillips said he had walked into a table while carrying the baby and struck his own leg.

Officers pressed him on why the mother had asked about the baby’s head: “I don’t know if she was spotting anything,” he said, adding the message had been sent days before the hospital visit.

Mother’s police interview

In a separate police interview, the baby’s mother – whose identity is protected – alleged that she had once walked into a room and seen Phillips “bouncing the baby up and down on his penis” after stepping out of the shower.

When asked what he had been wearing, she replied: “He was naked.”

Officers asked: “What did he do when he saw you?”

“I gave him a look and he just pulled the baby up higher,” she said.

She further alleged that Phillips had inserted the baby’s rattle into his anus, describing it as being used like “a butt plug”. Asked what she thought of this, she said: “Disgusted.” She told officers she took the rattle away and put it in the kitchen, adding that she had intended to wash it but did not, and later saw it fall behind the fridge.

“I didn’t want the baby touching it again,” she said.

When questioned about how long she had known Phillips before they began a sexual relationship, she said: “Two or three weeks,” explaining that they had met on Tinder.

Asked why she had used a profile picture of herself and the baby together on the dating app, she said: “People have got to know if you have kids.”

Officers asked whether the relationship had been “highly controlling and sexual”, and she replied: “Yes.”

When asked if Phillips had ever shown any interest in helping to care for the baby, she replied: “No.”

She went on to say she had become concerned after seeing Phillips with Sudocrem on his finger, “as if he had put his finger in a pot of it”.

“It was like a ring of Sudocrem around his finger, all the way down his finger near the first knuckle,” she said.

The court heard that there were no pots of Sudocrem in the house – only tubes.

Officers asked: “When you realised that the defendant may have put his finger into your baby’s bottom, how did you feel?”

“I was disgusted,” she said.

Expert evidence

Consultant paediatrician Dr Louise Newbury, an experienced specialist in child sexual abuse cases, was asked to review the medical findings for Dyfed-Powys Police.

She told the court it was most likely the baby’s anal injuries were caused by “penetrative blunt force trauma”.

Dr Newbury said the baby appeared to have two clusters of injuries: one likely between January 12 and 17, and another between January 23 and 24.

She told the jury the child was “in extreme distress” when examined at hospital, presenting as “a very different baby” to footage filmed on January 23.

Adjournment

Before the jury was discharged for the weekend, the court heard that there would be more interviews being read out on Monday, as well as some admin to do to the jury bundles which would greatly assist the court.

The trial continues.