The parents of a newborn baby left with horrific injuries and fractures all over her body walked free from court today, despite admitting child cruelty charges. The unnamed infant was just 23 days old when doctors discovered she had suffered multiple breaks to her legs, knees, ribs, right wrist and right hip. MRI scans showed the baby girl had also sustained a skull haemorrhage and trauma to her brain tissue. But her parents were spared jail at Bristol Crown Court today, despite pleading guilty to child cruelty on the basis of neglect – because a judge blamed social services for the ordeal.

A mother was arrested after she was captured on video shouting encouragement at her daughter during a fistfight with another teen, telling her to ‘hit harder’ and ‘bite her’. Sandra Padilla Miranda, 38, was arrested on Thursday after police discovered she allegedly asked the girl to come to her apartment complex in Orlando, Florida, so she could finish off a fight with ehr daughter that started at school.

Maine State Police investigators have been analyzing blood that was found in the home where baby Ayla Reynolds was reported missing six weeks ago, an official said Saturday. The revelation comes as investigators say they believe her father, who claims he was home when she disappeared but doesn’t know what happened to her, is lying to them. The blood was found in the basement early in the investigation into Ayla’s disappearance from her father’s home in Waterville, spokesman Steve McCausland said.

WASHINGTON—The world of college sports had been thrown off balance by recent allegations of sexual abuse against Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach at Penn State University. Sandusky is accused of having inappropriate sexual contact with young boys he met through the “Second Mile” charity he founded in 1977, and using the athletic facilities at Penn State as a haven for his abusive actions.

A high school student killed himself by jumping off a cliff as his mother and sister helplessly looked on in horror. Witnesses said John Albrigo, 18, ‘flew off the cliff like a bird’ after talking to them for hours about his depression and having ignored pleas from his desperate mother Rosemarie. He plunged 250 feet to his death at Palos Verdes Estates, Los Angeles after thanking a police officer, who responded to a 911 call, for his help and saying he had ‘something to do’.

A woman in Woods Cross, Utah, could face child endangerment charges after she made her son run alongside her car when she grabbed his belt and started to drive down the street. The woman, who has not been identified, was angry at the 9-year-old boy because he missed his school bus. Several motorists who saw the boy running down the street into oncoming traffic called police to report the incident.

Questions surround the death of a 17-year-old Colorado girl who jumped out of a moving car and was struck dead by oncoming traffic on a major highway. Catrina Fox was sitting in the passenger seat as her mother drove on a Colorado highway when she suddenly opened the door and jumped out in the very early hours of Saturday morning. Catrina was hit by a fellow teen who was driving his 2001 PT Cruiser and died at the scene.

A school secretary has been accused of enticing her 10-year-old stepson to have sex with her. Annitta Nikki Roberts is alleged to have engaged in the sex acts while being watched by the boy’s father. The 39-year-old is alleged to have molested the boy six years ago when he was living with them in Valdosta, Georgia. Details of the alleged abuse only came to light late last year when the boy, now aged 16, told his mother. Police said Roberts and her husband Joseph Terrell, 42, were involved in the sex acts.

As the clock struck midnight Saturday, Judge John H. Gasaway’s courtroom was silent as friends, law enforcement and others involved in the Perry case filled the gallery.The jury foreman read each count of the 34-count indictment in the child abuse/torture trial of the Perry family and announced that the jury had become deadlocked or hung on one count. Windie Perry, her husband Ernest and their adopted daughter Elizabeth were charged with abusing and torturing two adopted girls during a two-year period ending in 2008.

Jeffrey Baldwin (20 January 1997 – 30 November 2002) was a Canadian child whose death from septic shock after years of mistreatment by his grandparents, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman, led to significant changes in policy by children’s aid societies in the granting of custody of children to relatives. On 19 March 2003, his grandparents were arrested and charged with first-degree murder for their role in his death. The trial heard they had kept Jeffrey locked in a bedroom, where he lived in his own feces, and left him to drink from a toilet. The judge was told that the pair used the children as a source of income, collecting government support cheques while offering little in return. On 7 April 2006 they were convicted of second-degree murder by Justice David Watt in Ontario Superior Court.

RIVERSIDE, CA — A dad in Riverside has taken out a restraining order against a 4th-grader who allegedly threatened his son with a knife. A judge has granted a temporary order requiring the classmate to stay at least 20 feet away from Robert Casteel’s 10-year-old son, Christopher. The school district and the classmate — whose name has not been released — were served with the order on Tuesday.

A Ukrainian hockey coach was charged today in federal court with traveling for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct and transporting a person to engage in criminal sexual activity. The case is being investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Ivan Pravilov was accused of molesting a 14-year-old boy in his apartment in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia.

OCALA, FL — A 13-year-old girl was brutally beaten on a school bus, all because she wanted to sit down, authorities said. In all, seven children were arrested for the attack, which happened in Ocala, Florida. The beating was caught on the bus’ surveillance camera. The teenage victim suffered a concussion before the driver could break things up. The girl’s mother says the reason for the fight was petty.

A Special Forces soldier has been jailed after being accused of using an electric dog collar to punish two small children. Michael Lee Mitchell is also accused of torturing the girls by making them carry out extreme physical exercise until they vomited. The eight-year-old girl told authorities Mitchell would put the dog collar on arm after and use it to shock her if she stopped running. She told police Mitchell threatened to put the device on her neck before wrapping it around her arm.