A police officer suffered a life-changing spinal injury after a mother threw her own child at them in a rage, a court heard.

Kirsty Bearfield, 24, a mother-of-two was at Hull Royal Infirmary, East Yorkshire, because her older child needed treatment.

Social workers were concerned about the child's injury and told Bearfield her children should spend the night with their father, and asked police for assistance.

When the female detective constable explained the decision Bearfield, who was sat on a sofa in a waiting area with the baby on her knee "threw the baby with a look of anger on her face", Hull Crown Court heard.

The officer "put her arms up and caught the baby who had been flung towards her," prosecutor Phillip Evans said.

She put her head back so the back of the baby's head would not hit her face, and managed to catch the 30lb infant without him being injured.

However, the officer was in "immediate discomfort", and a scan revealed a trapped nerve in her lower spine, which required surgery.

She still does not have full use of her left shoulder and has been left with a six-inch scar. She has had to give up her hobbies of climbing, swimming, and walking, and have her hair cut short as she can no longer hold a hairdryer and cannot dress herself.