Nurse arrested after woman in vegetative state gives birth

A nurse has been arrested on suspicion of sexual assault after a woman in a vegetative state gave birth at an Arizona care home.

Nathan Sutherland, 36, was taken into custody after a DNA test identified him as the father of the baby boy, who was born on 29 December at the Hacienda HealthCare facility in Phoenix.

Staff at the facility claim they were unaware the 29-year-old patient was pregnant until she went into labour, the BBC reports.

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Sutherland has been charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of vulnerable adult abuse.

“We owed this arrest to the victim. We owed this arrest to the newest member of our community - that innocent baby,” Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams said.

The child is now in the care of the patient's family.

“We can't always choose how we come into this life,” added Police Sergeant Tommy Thompson. “But we as a community can choose to love this child.”

The woman had been in the care of the clinic since she was a toddler, CNN reports. A statement released by her family this week said that she has “significant intellectual disabilities as a result of seizures very early in her childhood”.

Following the birth, state health officials announced that heightened security measures have been put in place, including “increased staff presence during patient interactions, increased monitoring of patient care areas, and increased security measures with respect to visitors”, The Arizona Republic newspaper reports.

Police administered DNA tests to all male staff members at the facility under court order.

Sutherland has declined to speak to police and did not submit a plea when he appeared in court on Wednesday.

His lawyer, David Gregan, described his client as a “family man” with young children and said he has no prior criminal record.

“There’s no direct evidence that Mr Sutherland has committed these acts,” Gregan said. “I know at this point there’s DNA. But he will have a right to his own DNA expert.”