Dad gets jail time for breaking infant daughter's leg; he was "frustrated" while changing her diaper (New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Canada)

Dad ADAM CLIFFORD WHYNOT was "frustrated" when changing the diaper of his infant daughter. I mean she was actually crying and kicking, hard as that is to imagine! So Daddy snapped her left leg till there was an audible crack and then intentionally DROPPED HER ON THE FLOOR. Then he tried to cover up what he had done at the hospital, though he eventually confessed two days later. Mom was working at the time.

Yet another case where unemployed or underemployed Dad is taking on the home duties (and screwing up royally) while Mom is out busting her butt earning a paycheck. This is not the way it should be, and these are the terrible results we see when certain young men are put into "caretaking" roles they don't have the temperament or skills to do.

Dad got only half the regular sentence for an assault causing bodily harm, and Mom and her family are not happy about it. Oh, and did we mention that Dad has a history of check fraud too? What a prince.

http://www.ngnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=298849&sc=49

Last updated at 11:14 PM on 29/10/09

Father gets jail time for breaking infant daughter’s leg
The News

NEW GLASGOW – A man accused of snapping his infant daughter’s leg has been sentenced to nine months in jail, along with an additional month for several unrelated fraud charges.

Adam Clifford Whynot, 24, was changing his 3 1/2-month-old daughter Emaleigh’s diaper on Sept. 17, 2007, when he became “frustrated” with her crying and kicking and snapped her left leg. Crown attorney Bill Gorman told the court that Whynot panicked when he heard the audible crack and began thinking of a way to cover his tracks.

“He intentionally dropped her on the floor” Gorman told New Glasgow provincial court Thursday afternoon, causing bruising along the baby’s head and cheek.

“He said he was angry and was trying to cover up what he had done.”

Whynot contacted his common law wife at work to tell her the baby was injured; she called her mother to drive Whynot and the baby to the Aberdeen Hospital.

Ann Marie Russell says she can still remember the baby’s howls of pain as she arrived to pick up her granddaughter. The bulge in the child’s leg made it obvious that it was broken, she added.

“Her little fists were clenched as tight as she could get them,” Ann Marie Russell read in a victim impact statement.

Whynot had originally told emergency room personnel that he was trying to burp his daughter when he accidentally dropped her, causing her femur to fracture. However, the doctor who treated Emaleigh was “highly suspicious of child abuse,” said Gorman, since the injury “was not consistent” with the father’s story.

The baby was transferred to the IWK Hospital in Halifax, where she was seen by specialists and a child protection expert.

“The injuries she sustained were clearly enough to cause a severe break requiring some force, indicative of some trauma,” Gorman said.

“He intentionally risked significant intracranial hemorrhage or death to cover up what he did.”
She spent five days in traction and was put in a cast. She did not suffer a fractured skull from the fall to the floor.

Two days later, after giving police four different stories, her father finally confessed.

Emaleigh still has to go to the IWK once a year for further checks as doctors fear she could experience different rates of growth in her legs because of the fracture. She and her mother suffered from nightmares after the incident, said Leigha Russell, the baby’s mother, and some of Emaleigh’s milestones, like crawling and sitting, were delayed due to her injuries.

“...Emaleigh might not have any memories of this incident. But I do,” said Leigha Russell.

The family says they’re upset by the nine-month sentence, which is exactly half of the maximum sentence that’s available for summary convictions of this type of assault causing bodily harm.
They’re also upset by the two years they’ve had to wait for the sentencing. The case was adjourned multiple times before Whynot changed his plea to guilty in August.

“It just seemed to get brushed under the carpet,” said Ann Marie Russell.

Whynot will also serve an additional month in custody for 11 other charges, which include stealing the chequebook of his elderly neighbour and fraudulently writing cheques, one of which had “happy birthday” written in the memo line.

Other fraud cases, dating back to August 2007, involved Whynot trying to cash cheques for a closed account.

He also pleaded guilty and was sentenced on an incident that occurred in Liverpool, where he now resides, last December. That incident involved Whynot breaking open a floor safe using a crowbar and an axe and stealing coins from a loonie bank inside it.

Whynot will have to make restitution of over $3,000 to the owner of the safe and the Bank of Nova Scotia, submit a DNA sample and is banned from owning weapons for 10 years. He’ll also face an 18-month probation term.

Judge Theodore Tax recommended that Whynot’s jail time be served in solitary confinement for his protection.