A MONTH-OLD baby would have been "beside itself" with agony after it was allegedly assaulted, a court heard.

Gravesend man Nathan Rawling, 36, is accused of a "frenzied and brutal" attack on the 31-day-old infant causing a heart attack, respiratory failure and heavy bruising to the genital area.

The child had 26 rib fractures, a broken right arm, two broken collar bones and two punctured lungs when arriving at Darent Valley Hospital on the morning of December 1, 2011, a jury at Maidstone Crown Court was previously told.

Prosecutor John O'Higgins asked expert witness Doctor Patricia Kelly: "We have extreme pain from the arm injury and the genital injury: what about the ribs?"

The consultant paediatrician and A&E physician replied: "With the constellation of injuries the whole chest must have been in absolute agony.

"Just about every rib is fractured and some of them quite nastily.

"This baby is in extreme pain and is almost beside itself."

Arriving in A&E at around 7am the child took 10 minutes to be resuscitated after going into pulmonary arrest and stopping breathing, the jury of six men and six women was previously told.

Doctor Kelly said the trauma to the baby, which cannot be named for legal reasons, must have been caused in a single "injury event" between 5am and 7am.

She said: "That is the only sort of timing that makes clinical sense."

Rawling claims the chest and arm injuries occurred accidentally when the baby stopped breathing and turned blue so he performed CPR despite being a novice, the court was previously told.

The Kent County Council electrician maintains the genital injury was caused by his kneeling on the area by mistake, the jury has heard.

Rawling, formerly of St Gregory's Crescent, Gravesend, denies causing GBH with intent.

The trial continues.