The mother of the mistreated baby excuses herself and maintains that she never realized it: "I would have gone to the police"

BarcelonaThe woman investigated for allegedly mistreating her baby, who was admitted to the ICU at five weeks old, has again explained herself to the judge this Thursday. The woman has denied at all times that she intervened in any aggression and also maintained that she never saw her husband mistreat him. Although her internet history shows that she was worried about the man's attitude, with searches like "my partner doesn't support the baby" or "my partner doesn't treat my baby well", his defense insists on distinguishing between having detected mistreatment and having noticed that the man was treating the child badly due to a lack of skill or affection. During her statement, the woman affirmed that, "if I had seen it, I would obviously have gone to the police," according to legal sources.

However, the woman did admit that she had told her brother-in-law that was considering kicking her husband out because he wasn't taking good care of the child. According to legal sources, the mother also stated that, during visits to different medical centers, she asked about the anal fissures that led to the sexual assault charge. According to her account, in the five visits to four different centers before the child was hospitalized, no healthcare professional warned her that her son might be suffering from sexual abuse. "I wish they had told me," the woman said, according to sources present at the deposition.

The version that the mother has presented for almost three hours does not match the testimony of a dozen health professionals who have testified in this case. Among them, last week a pediatrician from the CAP Roger de Flor in Barcelona, who visited the child three days before he was admitted to the ICU, declared. This consultation, like the other four before the admission, was not related to the child's anal injuries. The doctor explained that at that time the child did not have the severe injuries that were detected once admitted to Vall d'Hebron, nor did the mother mention them. However, a few days before this visit to the CAP, the woman had already searched the internet for the child's anal fissures.

It was at home when the femur broke

The baby was admitted to the Vall d'Hebron ICU on March 16, transferred from Hospital Sant Pau, where the child abuse protocol was activated. What precipitated the hospital visit that day was a fractured femur, which doctors said could pose a life-threatening risk if a bone fragment broke an artery. In fact, the risk arising from this fracture is the reason the Prosecutor's Office sees signs of attempted homicide in this case. In Thursday's statement, the woman explained that she was at home when the fracture occurred. According to legal sources, the mother explained that she was in the kitchen at home and had no visual contact with her husband when he, from the dining room, warned her that "the child's leg was hanging."

The child's mother appeared before the judge at her own request after being released on provisional liberty, while the father remains in provisional prison for abuse and sexual assault and has asked the Barcelona Court to release him. This Thursday, the woman's defense also requested that she be allowed to visit the child, who has been with a foster family since the couple's arrest. The Prosecutor's Office opposed this, and the judge will decide in the coming days.

Like the defense teams, the healthcare professionals who testified during the investigation of the case do not find it suspicious that the couple went to different health centers, but rather consider it a usual behavior when seeking more opinions. The baby's mother is a nurse at Vall d'Hebron and a good portion of her family are also healthcare professionals. This is the case of a cousin, who will testify in October, when professionals from Sant Joan de Déu and Hospital del Mar, who attended to the child days before his admission and found no serious injuries or signs of mistreatment, will also testify.