A MAN who claimed he had been "shoogling" a crying baby has been convicted of attempted murder after the infant suffered catastrophic injuries.
John Dobbie fractured the child's skull and left him blind and brain damaged after shaking him and striking his head.
Dobbie, 36, had denied attempting to murder the three-month-old boy at his home in Kirkcaldy, in Fife, in 2011 but was found guilty of the offence by a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh.
He was convicted of assaulting the baby to his severe injury, permanent impairment and to the danger of his life.
But they acquitted him of an earlier attack on the baby, who cannot be identified for legal reasons.
The child now suffers from cerebral palsy. He will never be independently mobile.
Dobbie arrived at the Victoria Hospital, in Kirkcaldy, with the child on June 5 in 2011.
Detective Constable Kim Stuart said Dingwall-born Dobbie had told him he had earlier fed the baby and changed his nappy and did not notice any marks on his body. Jobless Dobbie said he had needed to go to the toilet and put the child in an upright position but when he returned found he had slipped onto his side. He said he was shoogling the child.
He noticed the baby's eyes were rolling back. He took the baby to its mother and she told him to phone a taxi and take him to hospital.
But jurors heard expert evidence pointed to the baby suffering violent shaking and direct impact to his head. The judge deferred sentence on Dobbie for the preparation of a background report. Lord Armstrong said: "As you have heard the jury have found guilty of this grave charge."
Dobbie, who has been on bail up until now, was remanded in custody.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article