A BABY was “gripped” and “squeezed” so hard that its ribs were broken, a court heard.

Dr Joanna Fairhurst, a consultant paediatric radiologist at Southampton General Hospital, said the injuries suffered by the infant, allegedly shaken by Daniel Holdaway, could not have been caused by day-to-day handling.

She told Southampton Crown Court that other than a major car crash, the “most likely” explanation for the injuries to the back of the youngster’s ribs was that it was “gripped from both sides and squeezed”.

She said: “We know that this is often the sort of action that is applied when you grab a baby and shake it, because you are gripping the chest and shaking the baby.

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“I believe that any competent adult would be aware that they had used an excessive force because they will have had to have squeezed the chest really very hard and so they would physically be aware that they had used an inappropriate action.

“But in addition to that, when the fractures occurred it would have been extremely painful to the baby.”

She added that the infant would have reacted immediately and she would have expected it to scream and be inconsolable for up to 15 minutes.

She also told the jury that the injuries to the seventh right and left ribs happened at the same time, between five to seven weeks before the X-rays were taken a week after the baby was rushed into hospital.

The fracture to the eighth right rib occurred three to five weeks before the X-rays, she said.

Holdaway is charged with three counts of grievous bodily harm on a baby on three separate occasions over a two-month period, causing brain injury and three fractured ribs.

Prosecutors say that the 21-year-old from Clovelly Road, St Mary’s, Southampton, “excessively” and “deliberately” shook the baby, inflicting “serious” injury.

He denies all three charges.

Proceeding.