CHILD ABUSE/NEGLECT – CRIMINAL CHARGES – ELIGIBLE DEFENDANTS. Can a person whose only relationship to the child is “mother’s boy friend” (live-in) be prosecuted as a “person responsible” for a child who suffers neglect or abuse or both while in his care? Well he certainly can be if he is the adult whose intentional blows broke the small child’s leg. And that’s true even if the child’s actual parent was present at the time of the injury, the Court of Appeals held in Carrington v. Commonwealth, ___ Va. App. ___, ___ S.E.2d __, 26 VLW 1080 (2/14/12). This man was responsible for the child when the child “was injured,” and he had been acting in the father role by helping to feed and bathe the child and get the child to sleep at night. In fact, he had been trying to give the child a bottle when he ended up hitting the infant. Nothing in this criminal statute says a defendant who had joint responsibility for a child can’t be guilty of criminal child neglect.