Bicester dad who broke baby's collarbone spared prison

Kieran Groves’ partner left their young daughter with the 46-year-old on April 27, 2021, as he played on his Xbox console in the upstairs ‘man cave’ at their Bicester home.

She looked in on them periodically as she made the dinner.

Groves, who in 2002 was jailed for shaking a baby, appeared ‘to be calm and in control’ to the woman, prosecutor Matthew Walsh told Oxford Crown Court.

READ MORE: Company fined £68,000 after worker fell through roof

Around 10 minutes later, the nature of the child’s crying changed.

She heard a scream and what she described as a ‘hard cry’.

Mr Walsh said: “She went upstairs and the defendant’s demeanour had completely changed.

"He looked panicked and worried and he indicated he might have hurt [their daughter].”

The girl’s mother, a nurse, could see no obvious injuries to the baby. She rang the minor injuries unit in Bicester and because of the girl’s age they advised her to go to A&E at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital.

Kieran Groves pictured leaving court with his hood up (Image: Oxford Mail)

It was not until a later check-up on May 12 that an x-ray identified a fracture to the child’s collarbone, although by that stage the broken bone had healed and the girl had regained full movement in her arm.

The blunt force injury was likely to have required ‘significant force’, a medical expert said.

Both parents were arrested and their daughter taken into foster care for three weeks before she was returned to her mother.

In his police interview he was said to have told officers ‘in effect he’d done nothing to cause the injury’.

Groves’ partner was said to have carried on their relationship until she watched him give evidence in the family court.

Click here to sign up to our free weekly crime newsletter (Image: Newsquest)

After breaking up with him, Groves sent her a text message saying he had hurt the child ‘out of rage’.

“For a split second I lost it,” he wrote. He claimed to have pressed her shoulder ‘until I heard a click’.

In a victim personal statement, the girl’s mother said Groves had ‘betrayed’ the baby’s trust. “He is her father and should have kept her safe from harm.”

The defendant could be seen crying in the dock as the woman, whose words were read by the prosecuting barrister, said her world ‘fell apart the night she was injured’. It fell apart a second time when the child was taken from her and for a third time when Groves made his confession.

Groves, of Andover Close, Bicester, pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm. He had one previous conviction in 2002 for shaking a baby, when the girl suffered a brain injury.

Mitigating, Lyall Thompson said his client had been ‘angry and upset at himself’ for his inability to get the child to settle and for what the barrister described as his ‘failures as a father’.

Kieran Groves outside court (Image: Oxford Mail)

The defendant, who worked hard and helped care for his mother, was described as ‘entirely chastened’. The judge was ‘not dealing with a man of violence’, Mr Thompson added.

Recorder Stuart Trimmer KC imposed two years’ imprisonment suspended for 23 months, meaning Groves will only go to prison if he breaches requirements to complete 250 hours of unpaid work or up to 45 rehabilitation activity requirement days.