A 24-year-old father reportedly caused his five-week-old son brain damage "most likely due to being shaken with considerable force" as he was jealous of his girlfriend's night out, Liverpool Crown Court heard on Tuesday.

Mehmet Tufan inflicted "catastrophic" injury on the infant in April 2018 while his partner, then 22, was out with her friends.

The court heard that Tufan let anxiety "get the better of him" and vigorously shook his son "in frustration or anger," leaving the child brain damaged, blind, and unable to use his legs, Metro UK reported.

Tufan, however, denied the charge of intent of grievous bodily harm and prosecutors eventually accepted a plea to the lesser offense of grievous bodily harm, caused by a "momentary loss of control."

Prosecuting attorney Zillah Williams told the court that Tufan had called an ambulance at 1:40 am, telling officials that his son was not breathing and had a hair stuck in his throat. When emergency services arrived at the scene at 1:48 am, they noted that the child was blue and in cardiac arrest, and they had to resuscitate him.

The baby was taken into intensive care at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, where doctors found that he had an "extensive brain injury, blood in his spinal cord, and extensive retinal hemorrhages."

Doctors at the hospital did not believe Tufan's account and said that the injuries were "most likely due to being shaken with considerable force." When authorities examined the phones of both parents, they found out that Tufan had become "increasingly frustrated and anxious with his partner being out with her friends."

According to the phone details, Tufan's girlfriend texted him at 10:25 pm, saying: "Some lad come over trying to get me up to dance." This made him message her friends asking what was going on.

Tufan, shortly after midnight, sent a text saying he was going to call 999 because the baby was having "major fits." His partner then left him a text and voice mails "scolding him for giving her a fright and panicking her."

Tufan reportedly messaged that he had pulled a hair from the baby's throat at 1.14 am, and at 1.33 am he told he would sleep downstairs and was expecting a "dog’s life."



He later confessed to officials that he was upset about the man approaching his girlfriend: "Once I start worrying, I can’t really control it."

He also accepted exaggerating about calling 999 in an attempt to try to get his partner to come home: "She was just dancing away. She didn’t seem that bothered that I was upset."

The baby's blood tests also revealed that Tufan had not made the emergency call immediately after the baby stopped breathing, and paramedics at his home noted that the baby was not getting effective circulation for at least 20 minutes.

"The prosecution case is that the defendant assaulted his son by forcefully shaking him, in moments of either frustration or anger," Williams said.

Reports state that the baby was kept in hospital for four months but he survived and is now living at his grandmother's house along with his mother.

The baby's mother said that her son is effectively blind and has a special wheelchair because he cannot move his legs, which require surgery. He is also unable to sit up as he cannot support his head, has to be fed through a tube and has daily physiotherapy, nebulizers for breathing and morphine.

The mother said that she is "never going to trust anyone again."

Tufan has been sentenced to two years in prison, however, Judge Robert Warnock while announcing his sentence said that although he accepts Tufan had suffered from anxiety, no sentence would help the baby "live a life to which he was entitled."

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