A monster who beat a little baby girl, breaking both the child’s legs, fracturing her skull and leaving her with permanent brain damage, has been jailed for 10 years and nine months.
The child was just over eight weeks old when she suffered a catalogue of appalling injuries which have left her blind and deaf and in need of constant round the clock care.
The man who inflicted the terrible injuries, Polish born Grzegorze Lis, 35, even bit the tiny infant on her arm.
Today, his partner, Joanna Skrodzka, 22, who knew the child was badly hurt and suffering, but who did not seek out help for her, was jailed for two years for an offence of child cruelty.
St Albans Crown Court heard that the injuries to the baby, who can’t be named for legal reasons, were inflicted by Lis.
He shared a flat in The Maltings, Hemel Hempstead, with his partner Skrodzka.
Lis was jailed on Monday for two offences of inflicting grievous bodily harm on the baby girl with intent and causing her actual bodily harm.
Today Polish born Miss Skrodzka appeared for sentence having been found guilty by a jury last month of the offence of child cruelty.
Jane Bickerstaff QC prosecuting told how in March of this year the baby girl born just two months earlier in January was attacked and violently assaulted by unemployed Lis on a number of occasions.
Both the baby’s legs were broken at the lower shin area close to the ankles. Both thigh bones had also been broken.
The child suffered a fractured skull caused by a massive impact injury and there was evidence that it had been violently shaken in a separate incident causing bleeding on the brain and leaving it starved of oxygen, which had left her blind.
In addition the child had been severely bitten on her left forearm by Lis.
Recorder Amanda Tipples who had presided over Skrodzka’s trial said that she thought the injuries had been inflicted sometime over Thursday, March 1 or Friday March, 2 of this year.
However, in an attempt to protect her partner, Skrodzka had kept quiet about what she knew even though she must have known the child was in terrible pain and suffering.
As a result, no medical help was there for the little girl.
It wasn’t until the following Wednesday (March 7) that staff at Watford General Hospital saw the baby for the first time and she was immediately transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
During Skrodzka’s trial, expert evidence was given by a doctor that in 600 cases he had been involved in, this was one of the worst cases of brain damage he had ever seen where the child had survived.
The court heard today the child is now incontinent because of her injuries and will need 24 hour care for the rest of her life.
Passing sentence, Recorder Tipples told Skrodzka “You failed to get any medical help for her even though you were aware something terrible had happened to her and she was unwell.”
The recorder said a “right thinking person” would not have waited more than five minutes once it was realised the child was ill.
She jailed Skrodzka for two years and nine months.