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Benn Bathgate / Stuff
Shane Claude Roberts is on trial in Rotorua High Court charged with the 2014 murder of 10-month-old Karlos Stephens.
Baby Karlos Stephens’ nonfatal brain hemorrhage offers insight into who killed him, according to Starship Hospital’s clinical director.
Neil Patrick Kelly made the comment about the behavior of child abusers while testifying in Shane Roberts’ murder trial in Rotorua Superior Court on Tuesday.
Roberts faces only one charge: that between November 29 and 30, 2014, he murdered Karlos Stephens.
On the opening day of the trial, Crown Prosecutor Anna McConachy told the jury of six men and six women that Karlos and his twin brother had been entrusted to the care of Roberts and his family, as their mother, Pamela Stephens , he was struggling to cope.
Under Roberts’ care, the Crown alleged, Karlos suffered “major trauma to the head” and later died.
Roberts’ defense attorney, Simon Lance, also spoke to jurors, telling them they faced two major issues.
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Shane Roberts is on trial in Rotorua Superior Court.
“Murder or manslaughter and secondly, has the Crown proven that it was this man here, Shane Roberts, who by some illegal act caused Karlos Stephens’ injuries,” he said.
“Mr. Roberts’s position in a nutshell is that he didn’t hurt Karlos, he didn’t cause the injuries that eventually led to his death.”
When questioned, Kelly said the brain hemorrhage previously detected in Karlos was more important as an example of behavior.
“Very often, with suspected child abuse, the adult waits and waits for the child to wake up,” he said.
“Particularly the case when a child had had a head injury before, as Karlos had done … at some point the adult thinks that this child is not waking up and I have to seek help, but we know that time is very important. If a caregiver waits before seeking help, the risk of a poor outcome greatly increases. “
When questioned by Lance, Kelly admitted that he was “not there” when Karlos suffered the fatal injury.
“What was it or who caused it, I can’t answer that question.”
The jury also heard evidence from neuropathy professor Colin Smith, via an audiovisual link from the University of Edinburgh.
He said the level of force used to inflict the head injury that killed Karlos would have been “beyond what babies normally experience.”
“There has been a [second] episode of trauma, Karlos’s heart stopped working properly and that lack of blood flow because the heart is not working properly … at that moment it is an injury that cannot be survived.
Smith also rejected the suggestion that the injuries sustained could have been caused by an accident.
“We just don’t see this in simple accidents in children, in normal everyday life, a level of force above and beyond what is normally experienced in babies. [caused the death],” he said.
“Babies are quite robust, they fall down stairs, they hit each other all the time and they don’t suffer these serious injuries.”
Smith also described how he believed Karlos would have been in the wake of the trauma.
“Too bad, it would be obvious to any competent adult. Struggling to breathe, without making any noise, without responding to any stimulus. “
When questioned by Lance, Smith admitted that he “looked at this issue from a distance” and that it was an imprecise science to use cell damage analysis to go back to a time when injury may have been caused.
The trial continues.
