Craig Rowland: Father found guilty of son’s murder

Lewis Oliver Rowland was just 13 weeks old when he was admitted to Craigavon Area Hospital on 20 November 2015.

He was brought by Rowland and the child’s mother, Laura Graham, with medical examinations showing that he had suffered a serious brain injury.

This resulted in a permanent and severe disability.

Later that afternoon, Lewis was rushed to Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital for Sick Children with a brain bleed.

He died three years later on 20 October 2018 from complications arising from surgery.

During the trial, which spanned four weeks, medical experts said the brain injury Lewis had sustained as a baby was likely caused by a “forceful shaking episode”.

It was the prosecution’s case that the injuries suffered by the child in 2015 were a “significant cause of his death.”

During the trial, one doctor had described Lewis’ brain injury as “one of the most severe” he had seen during his 10 years of practice.

He said it was sustained within a 24 hour period of Lewis being admitted to hospital and was akin to one suffered during a road traffic collision or a fall from an “enormous height”.

Both Rowland and Ms Graham had previously pleaded guilty to wilful neglect.