The defence case of a Cavan woman accused of shaking a baby in her care relied on the medical evidence from a 'doctor without patients', prosecutors have claimed in closing arguments.

As the jury in the trial of Sandra Higgins retired to consider their verdict, prosecutors urged the eight men and four women to use their 'common sense'.

Ms Higgins - with an address at The Beeches, Drumgola Wood in Cavan Town - has pleaded not guilty to causing serious harm to the child.

The injuries suffered by the 10-month-old baby at the centre of this trial 'required violence', prosecutor Sean Gillane told jurors, and were undoubtedly in the realm of non-accidental injury.

Central to the case put forward by the defence, Mr Gillane said, was the testimony of Dr Waney Squier - who questioned the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome - Dr Squier 'was in fact a doctor without patients', he insisted, and the ultimate back seat driver.

The defence offered a 'fixed, unshakable and wrongful view” of medical literature', he insisted, and told jurors that they were not being asked to reach a judgement on 'theories of science, medicine or life'. But were to use the most important tool available to them, their common sense.

In closing, defence counsel Remy Farrell told jurors making a decision was not the same as 'having a bit of a punt' and he found it extraordinary that the prosecution would rubbish the testimony of a pathologist, in this case Dr Squier.