Father jailed for shaking newborn baby to death in Hampstead home
Pedro Rubim has been jailed for eight and a half years for shaking his newborn baby to death. Picture: MET POLICE - Credit: Archant
A father who shook his six-week-old son to death at his Hampstead flat has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years.
Paramedics were called to College House, Finchley Road, Hampstead, on February 20 last year. Picture: GOOGLE MAPS - Credit: Archant
Financial administrator Pedro Rubim, 43, was convicted of one count of manslaughter following a trial at Blackfriars Crown court which finished yesterday.
He had claimed that his son Alejandro had died when he slipped out of his bouncer and fell on to the wooden floor while he had gone to fetch him a bottle of milk. He said he had then shaken Alejandro in an attempt to revive him after the fall.
The court had heard how Rubim had been looking after his baby boy at the flat he shared with the baby’s mother Maribel Rodriguez in College House, Finchley Road, on the morning of February 20, 2016.
The court heard Alejandro was a “perfectly fit and healthy baby” when Ms Rodriguez left to visit the dentist after 9am on the morning of the incident, leaving her partner of five years, Rubim, sitting on the sofa holding the boy in his arms as he gave him his bottle.
Paramedics were called to the flat at around 11am, but the baby died in hospital four days later. Alejandro had suffered “serious head and eye injuries” consistent with having been shaken.
Olcay Sapanoglu, from CPS London’s Homicide Unit, said: “This is not a case of a 45-day-old baby accidentally falling out of a baby bouncer, but the death of a small child while in the sole care of his father.
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“Although Rubim called 999 himself, the prosecution was able to present a number of medical professionals as witnesses who were clear that Alejandro’s fatal injuries were far from consistent with a fall from a low level height. Many of them pointed to medical evidence that showed Alejandro’s injuries were most likely caused by being shaken and or thrown.
“Deaths involving infants are particularly tragic and the CPS will always consider the evidence and circumstances surrounding each individual case before considering whether it is in the public interest to bring a prosecution.”
Portuguese Rubim, who worked for financial firm Global Asset Management, had denied manslaughter.
