A woman who admitted severely injuring a ten month old child she cared for is expected to take the stand in the Supreme Court in her own defence.

In Magistrates' Court last month, former day care owner Jacqueline Fubler pleaded guilty to injuring Stephen Ebbin.

Yesterday she appeared in the Supreme Court for sentencing. After hearing a statement of facts from Senior Crown counsel Lloyd Rayney and Defence lawyer Mark Pettingill, Chief Justice Richard Ground adjourned the case for a Newton Hearing.

A Newton hearing in legal terms means that a defendant enters a guilty plea but disputes certain facts in the prosecution's case. Mr Pettingill told the court that Fubler entered a guilty plea to causing grievous bodily harm but did not admit shaking Stephen so hard that he developed symptoms consistent with Shaken Baby Syndrome.

The Newton Hearing aims to discern how the grievous bodily harm was caused.

"She accepted that while he was in her care the infant was injured, she accepted she caused him injury but she is not able to support this with shaken baby syndrome," said Mr. Pettingill. "The position the defendant maintains is that she did not shake the baby with regards to the injuries."

Last month during her Magistrates' Court trial Fubler admitted causing grievous bodily harm to Stephen on July 6, 2001. Before that date Stephen had marks and bruises and a cut on his lip indicating injuries had been inflicted on him since he was sent to the day care several days earlier.

During the trial the court heard how Stephen was rushed to the hospital in a coma like state. His injuries were so serious he had to be flown by air ambulance to Boston for medical treatment.

Fubler said Stephen had been sitting in a red chair at the time and had fallen out of it and struck his head against a wall.

Senior Crown counsel Lloyd Rayney read out a summary of the case, describing the severe internal head injuries Stephen Ebbin had sustained at Fubler's day care, the Noah's Ark Infant Room in Warwick, which has since shut down.

"The injuries to this child are permanent, I mean no disrespect to the family, but he will never reach his full potential and his physical and mental disabilities will only become more apparent as he gets older," said Mr Rayney. "The family has in no way been spared from the trauma of a long, ongoing case of a very personal nature."

Dr. Alexander Barron, Stephen's paediatrician, gave evidence at the trial last month of an internal brain injury consistent with the child having been shaken back and forth at a high velocity. Dr. Barron told the court that blood vessels in the child's eyes had broken and bled which was a classic indication of shaken baby syndrome. CT scans taken since that date have shown that there is permanent fluid on Stephen's brain which cannot be corrected and has caused a dramatic increase in his head circumference.

Dr. Barron will have to return to present his evidence during the Newton hearing.

Senior Crown counsel Lloyd Rayney told the court yesterday that Fubler had entered a guilty plea, and had thus admitted to causing injuring to Stephen in this manner.

He recommended she face a 3-5 year prison sentence.

"What this mother has experienced is every mother's worst nightmare," he said. "Stephen was subject to a number of injuries, this was not in a moment of weakness or anger, but inflicted on the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday he was in her care."

He said Fubler was left in a position of trust as a day care owner and did not appear to exhibit any remorse for her actions.

As he read how EMTs found Stephen in a "rubbery, limp, and unresponsive state" on the day he was injured, the child's mother Teresa Ebbin had to leave the court room in tears.

Although Mr. Ground ordered the case be adjourned he could not find a record of that recommendation in the Magistrates' Court record. "Nothing in the record shows me that this was explained to the magistrate in the clarity that it is now explained to me," he said. He also ordered the court to complete a psychological and psychiatric assessment of Fubler. The date of the Newton Hearing has not yet been set.

The case has sparked widespread review of the Island's existing day care services, particularly home care providers. Officials at the Health Department were not aware that Fubler was running a day care out of her home until she contacted them to run a summer camp. Since the trial, the Health Department has also found unsafe and distressing conditions at homes where people are running day cares.