A man admitted with the police that he violently shook his partner's 11-month-old daughter and then threw her into the cot, fracturing her skull in the process, a court heard this morning.

The man told the police that after spending an entire day and night at the Zabbar feast, the girl's crying and nagging was too much for him to handle.

The 27-year-old man from Zabbar, who cannot be named by court order, stands charged with the attempted murder of his partner’s baby girl when he allegedly threw her into a cot and caused her critical injuries at their Ħamrun home early on September 12.

The girl underwent an operation due to several fractures to her skull. She has since been released from intensive care and is now in stable condition.

Before Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit, police inspector Edel Mary Camilleri said the man's admission was the second version he had given interrogators after retracting his first version, where he blamed his girlfriend for causing the injuries.
He admitted he had lied under oath when he told the inquiring magistrate that his girlfriend had injured the young child.

He told police he, his girlfriend and the three children, aged seven, four and 11 months, spent the entire day at the Zabbar feast where they drank and consumed drugs. He said he sniffed a line of cocaine and smoked cannabis.

They returned home at about 5am and after some time he got hungry and asked his partner to prepare something to eat.

While she was downstairs, the baby started crying, nagging and making noises that he found "unbearable", so he picked her up, shook her and violently threw her into the cot.

He said it was there that the baby hit her head against the cot. On the fractured leg, the couple told investigators that her leg got lodged in between the cot's slats and that was when she sustained a broken femur.

Doctors told inspector Camilleri that the baby had suffered the broken leg some three or four days before she was rushed to hospital with a fractured skull and the bone was so badly dislodged that she needed a plate and pins. She also had severe bruising to her other leg.

She said the couple argued when the woman wanted to call an ambulance when her daughter started making strange noises and seemed like she was finding it difficult to breathe. The man insisted she does not call an ambulance and they would take her to Mater Dei later on with their car.

An ambulance was eventually called and the baby was immediately admitted to the ITU for children.

Inspector Camilleri said she was impressed with the particular foul smell all three children had. They also had dirt under their finger nails and looked as if they had not washed "for quite some time".

Her suspicions of lack of cleanliness and neglect were confirmed when she went to their residence in Hamrun, where she found filth all over.

Police Inspector Chris Pullicino also said he was impressed with the dirt, saying there was animal excrement on the floor and even used nappies were lying around. He said he was also impressed when he found the man and woman asleep in the hospital's waiting room while the child was fighting for her life inside.

The woman, who also cannot be named by court order, denied knowing how the child had sustained the injuries and during a confrontation at the police depot accused her former boyfriend of lying when he had said she had injured her daughter.

Inspector Camilleri repeated her testimony in a separate sitting in which the 24-year-old mother, who was born in Romania but lives in Malta, stands charged with neglect of her three children. The inspector said the woman had admitted that she had smoked a joint at the feast.

The cases continue.