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Charges against a man accused of forcing a girl to eat her own vomit have been dropped.
The 28-year-old was an Oranga Tamariki-approved caregiver for the girl at the time, and cannot be named to avoid identifying her.
He was tried in Hamilton District Court on six charges related to assault and mistreatment of the girl between early 2017 and May 2019, when he was between the ages of six and nine.
The allegations also included banging her head against the wall of her room, leaving a hole, burning her hand with hot water and forcing her to eat rotten food that she had hidden.
He denied all charges and the prosecution had the responsibility to prove that the events occurred as the girl described them, Judge Robert Spear said.
He dismissed all charges Tuesday afternoon, saying the case did not get to the point where he could be sure of guilt.
“This is not a credibility contest,” he said.
The girl provided clear and firm evidence and was not shaken by “strong cross-examination” suggesting that her accusations were not correct.
“She responded almost instantly and exactly to the nature of the questions that were asked.”
Judge Spear “was not completely impressed” by the man’s evidence until his wife’s evidence added broader context.
She was left with the feeling that the couple did their best to provide the girl with a home, which would not have been easy given her “troubled nature.”
Their evidence covered good parenting, “except in one case where they explained that the complainant had to eat junk food … instead of eating because she wasn’t eating anything else.”
Andy Jackson / Stuff
The man denied having made the girl eat her vomit, but said she had been ill one night after he fed her junk food for one night to teach her the consequences of eating too much (file photo).
Hours earlier, the man had responded to the accusations with “no” and “never”.
He admitted that he gave her junk food for dinner after she threw out healthy lunches and refused to eat anything else around the house.
“I gave him junk food to teach him a lesson,” said the man, “that it’s bad to eat too much junk food.”
“Did you plan for him to eat enough food to make him throw up?” asked defense attorney James Buckle.
“No, not exactly. Just enough to make her stomach hurt,” he replied.
He denied all other accusations, including hitting her on the hand and butt with kitchen spoons and slapping her so that her nose would bleed.
“We do not tolerate violence in our home,” he said.
Describing the man burning his hand under the hot water, the girl said that he made a comment like ‘if you can hurt, you can take it’.
He admitted to making a “stupid comment” but said the girl was burned and he treated her.
His wife said he had been in the living room, on his phone.
“If I heard my girl get hurt, I would run there and save her,” he said.
The man refuted the girl’s story of being thrown against a room wall, saying she ran her shoulder through the wall after slipping on a toy truck.
Prosecutor Larry Meredith challenged him, saying that it would not be physically possible for him to fit in and place his shoulder in that space behind the door.
“You’d be surprised,” said the man.
And the man’s wife was more emphatic in not seeing him make the girl eat rotten food.
“That’s disgusting. I would kick [him] outside.”
The couple said they used various disciplinary consequences for the children, including nap times, time out, and extra homework.
The man said he used to do Crossfit sessions and give the kids an extra representation, or things like that, but stopped when Oranga Tamariki deemed it too extreme.
His wife had also said that she had expressed various concerns about the girl’s behavior with Oranga Tamariki, but that she had not received the support she hoped for.
