A court in the US has heard that tragic one-year-old Rehma Sabir sustained abusive head injuries on the day that she died.
Cavan woman Aisling Brady McCarthy, who was Rehma's nanny, is due to stand trial for her murder, after the toddler was was found unresponsive in her cot on the afternoon of January 14th 2013 and died in hospital two days later.
It is claimed that Rehma suffered fatal bleeding in her brain and from her eyes as a result of injuries sustained while Mrs McCarthy was caring for her.
According to the Irish Times, Dr Alice Newton this week testified that the infant was acting normally when the mother left the family’s apartment in Boston at 10.30am on January 14th.
She said that she Rehma’s arrived at the hospital with “irreversible brain damage and with signs of trauma”, leading her to believe that the injuries occurred at between 3.30pm and 4pm that day.
“It is impossible for a child with that degree of brain injury to appear normal, playing, drinking, eating. After sustaining such a severe brain injury there is not an interval or period where children can look normal and then get very sick.”
“It is my opinion that Rehma was subjected to violent force, violent shaking and blunt force trauma such would be viewed by a spectator to be completely unreasonable handling of an infant.”
The nanny’s lawyers have asked that Dr Newton's evidence, a witness for the prosecution, be excluded or limited as they claim she failed to take into account a detailed medical history from Rehma’s paediatrician and other medicals specialists, and she did not meaningfully consider any alternative diagnoses.
The case will go to trial in October and Ms McCarthy has denied first degree murder.
