A TEENAGE father convicted of breaking a puppy’s back has admitted ripping his baby’s lip while trying to force her to drink.
Daniel Irvine admitted causing unnecessary cruelty to an animal after his 15-week-old cross-bred spaniel was found to have suffered multiple fractures last February.
But Liverpool Crown Court yesterday heard more than six months before he had torn his baby daughter’s lip while feeding her.
Irvine’s baby, Mia Jane Stewart, was being cared for at Alder Hey hospital, when the teenager, who was staying with her, was woken at 2am to feed her.
Irvine, then 17, called urgently for nurses who discovered she was bleeding from her mouth.
Irvine, now 19, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm on the day his trial was due to start.
But yesterday the father-of-two was spared prison after Judge Brown heard the injury was superficial and had been caused by Irvine’s inexperience.
He suspended a 26-week prison sentenced for two years and placed Irvine, of Overton Close, Kirkby, under supervision for two years.
