Couple Jailed Over Baby's Injuries

16 October 2012, 12:37 | Updated: 16 October 2012, 13:36

Police have released a picture of a man who beat an eight week old baby girl, breaking both the child's legs, fracturing her skull and leaving her with permanent brain damage.

Polish born Grzegorze Lis was jailed last week for ten years and nine months for the attack on the eight week old baby girl, which has left her blind and deaf.

35 year old Lis even bit the tiny infant on her arm. His partner, Joanna Skrodzka, 22, knew the child was badly hurt and suffering, but didn't help her.  She was jailed for two years for an offence of child cruelty.
 
Today, Hertfordshire Police have released pictures of the couple, who shared a flat in The Maltings in Hemel Hempstead.
 
St Albans Crown Court heard that the injuries to the baby, who can't be named for legal reasons, were inflicted by Lis. He was jailed after pleading guilty to two offences of inflicting grievous bodily harm on the baby girl with intent and causing her actual bodily harm.
 
Skrodzka, also from Poland, was sentenced following a trial in which she was convicted 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 and 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 1st March or Friday 2nd March of this year by Lis.
 
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 (7th March) 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 the 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.