Man who battered baby boy and left him to suffer overnight jailed

When five-month-old Tyler Bake was taken to Pontefract General Infirmary on August 26, 2008 he had abdominal injuries and was ingesting his own faecal material.

The delay in getting help for him had resulted in peritonitis and it was feared brain damage. Doctors also discovered the baby had a fractured skull and several old rib fractures.

Sentencing Kyle Bake at Leeds Crown Court yesterday Judge James Spencer QC said the case was particularly serious because there were so many offences over a period of time, including an earlier incident of scalding.

“You kept things secret so there was no timely medical treatment to make life easier for the child.”

He said Bake was not the natural father of Tyler but had begun a relationship with Karen Pearce while she was pregnant and “ostentatiously took responsibility” for him when he was born.

“You pretended you were a caring and concerned parent but the events of this case have reflected quite clearly that was not so.”

Bake, 24 of Willow Park, Pontefract, was found guilty by a jury on four charges of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and one jointly with Pearce of cruelty by causing Tyler unnecessary suffering though a failure to get medical attention in August.

He had denied inflicting any of the injuries intentionally blaming accidents and his family said they would fight on to prove his innocence.

Pearce, 23, of Orchard Head Crescent, Pontefract who has since married Bake, was jailed for 12 months after she was also found guilty on the cruelty offence.

Judge Spencer said she had failed in her duty to care for her son. “When that child was clearly so seriously injured, for many hours you resisted what must have been the pull to take him to seek medical treatment and it was only when the child was in a very serious condition indeed you took him to the doctor.”

“It seems to me you put your own and your partner’s position before that of the child.”

Michelle Colborne, QC, prosecuting, told the jury when Tyler was about five weeks old Pearce noticed he had some blisters to the toes and tip of his left foot after he had spent the afternoon alone with Bake.

She quickly took him to her own GP and hospital and later Bake said he might have spilled some boiling water accidentally scalding the baby.

She said it was the Crown’s case there was no accident on that occasion or others when Bake claimed the child had fallen on to a cup or he had accidentally squeezed him when failing to catch him properly.

Miss Colborne said Tyler was apparently well at midday on August 25, 2008 but while alone with his mother and Bake that evening he became chronically ill but contact was only made with the local surgery the following morning.

A doctor saw Tyler there about 10.25am and realised immediately he was desperately ill. He was breathing rapidly, emitting a squeak with each breath, his body was cold and abdomen extended.

He was taken to the nearby hospital and needed immediate resuscitation. His small bowel was found to be perforated, similar to car accident injuries, and he was operated on that afternoon.

Miss Colborne said neither explained how that injury was inflicted. “Rather telling is their unswerving loyalty, one for the other, in the face of incontrovertible evidence of deliberate harm.”

The skull injury was also not him rolling from the couch as suggested but a blow or being struck against a surface.

Andrew Dallas, for Pearce, said she had accepted plausible explanations from her partner.

After the case Temporary Detective Chief Inspector Paul Jeffrey said: “This has been a very challenging investigation into how a baby sustained horrific injuries when he was only a few months old.

“Thankfully the victim has made a full recovery and is unlikely to remember first hand what happened to him at such an early age.”