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David Grant Sinclair is on trial in Greymouth Superior Court for the murder of his 10-month-old son.
A jury found that a Hokitika baby was killed by his father.
David Grant Sinclair, 31, was tried in Greymouth Superior Court for the alleged murder of his 10-month-old son, CJ White.
The baby died on July 9, 2019 after suffering 30 bruises on his body, complex fractures in his skull and bleeding in the brain and behind both eyes.
CJ was airlifted to Christchurch Hospital, but could not be saved.
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Sinclair looked pale but emotionless as the jury returned its unanimous guilty verdict on the murder charge after roughly four hours of deliberation.
Judge Rebecca Edwards referred Sinclair for sentencing to a provisional date of January 22.
Jurors had to decide whether CJ’s injuries were caused by his father’s beating or a fall down the stairs.
Sinclair said her son died after finding him at the foot of the stairs.
He said he lied at first, claiming that CJ had fallen out of bed because he had been left unattended and was afraid of losing custody of his children.
Judge Edwards summed up the case before the jury retired at 11:30 a.m. Thursday.
She said the Crown alleged that the motive for Sinclair’s murder was her frustration over CJ’s teething and insomnia.
The defense’s argument was that it made no sense for an “otherwise loving father to kill his baby while his other son was sleeping at home and his friends were on the way.”
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10-month-old CJ Bodhi White died in hospital after being injured in Hokitika in July 2019. His father, David Grant Sinclair, denies killing the baby.
Medical experts said CJ suffered previous injuries, including major bruising to the groin, a broken foot and brain damage, the judge said.
Previous injuries and bruises aside, experts deemed it unlikely that CJ’s head injuries were sustained from a fall down the stairs.
Sinclair’s mother said he was a good father, but not perfect, and that she had never seen him get angry or hit her son.
A Plunket nurse and Sinclair’s friends weren’t concerned about the bruises they had seen on CJ in the weeks leading up to his death.
The judge said that in order to find Sinclair guilty of murder, the jury had to decide whether CJ’s injuries were inflicted by Sinclair, whether he intended to kill him, or whether he was reckless about whether he would die from the assault.
A lesser verdict of involuntary manslaughter was open to the jury if it could not determine whether you intended to kill your son or whether you had reckless intent.
Crown prosecutor Deirdre Elsmore said in her closing speech Wednesday that CJ was killed by a violent assault by her father.
“Frustrated by CJ’s wakefulness and gray hair, the defendant grabbed CJ possibly by the shoulder and struck him against [a] hard surface in the house, or something hard was hit on the head. “
A previous injury to the groin, days before his death, was an “extraordinarily cruel and cruel assault on a child.”
Joanne Carroll / THINGS
The jurors have withdrawn to consider their verdict.
Sinclair told “selfish, selfish lies … dreamed while CJ was unconscious and struggling to breathe,” Elsmore said.
A forensic pathologist had previously told the court that it was possible, but unlikely, that CJ’s head injury was caused by a fall down the stairs.
The injury was unusually severe and similar to those generally seen in high-impact road crashes.
Defense attorney Andrew McKenzie said teething did not accumulate as a motive for the murder and that Sinclair had many friends and family who helped him care for CJ.
He said the bruise in the groin did not result in the boy’s death, and that there was no evidence at the Sinclair home to support the Crown murder allegations.
McKenzie said experts largely agreed that while death from falling stairs was rare, it was possible.
