Abuse probe in baby skull fracture dropped

A two-week-old infant’s head wound turned out to have been caused by a neonatal condition, with police terminating their investigation into suspected abuse and both parents based in Limassol being cleared of suspicion.

According to local media, a baby just 13 days old was taken to the Emergency Room at Limassol General Hospital over the weekend, with a visible bruise on the head. The infant was then transferred to Makarios Children's Hospital in Nicosia due to a skull fracture.

The parents, described as Bangladeshi nationals, reportedly told hospital officials they were concerned about swelling on the baby's head that had not gone down by Saturday. They also reportedly told police they had no involvement in their infant’s skull fracture.

State forensic pathologist Angeliki Papetta, who had examined the baby and determined the skull fracture, had stopped short of saying what might have caused the injury. She reportedly asked doctors to carry out further tests while a CT scan had also been ordered.

But it later emerged that the mother had gone through a long and difficult labour and the delivery had been intense, exerting physical pressure on the newborn.

The official cause of the swelling associated with the bruise was later described by some media as natural infant skull fracture. It was not immediately clear whether doctors in Limassol had been aware of the neonatal condition prior to calling the police or transferring the baby to Nicosia for further tests.

Media reports did not name the parents as suspects during the course of the investigastion while the baby was said to be in stable condition.

But police told Knews that due to an official complaint filed over alleged abuse, the case could not be officially over until the exact cause of the fracture can be detetermined by police investigators, not doctors.

Police did not identify the source of the complaint or whether the parents had been suspected of child abuse at any point in time during the investigation.